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THE FACTS AND FABLES OF 
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 



BY 

ALBERT B. OLSTON 

AUTHOR OF 

MIND POWER AND PRIVILEGES: 

THE POWER TO PROLONG LIFE., Etc, 



PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR 
850 McCLURG BUILDING CHICAGO ILL. 



.©5- 



Copyright 1912 
By K. B. OLSTON 
Published January 1 



©CI.A309310 



PREFACE. 

In presenting this book to an inquiring public 
I do not do as some, cry aloud, "let us alone," 
fearing the light of criticism; but I urge and ask 
for the most searching criticism, that its abrasive- 
ness may aid me in not only emphasizing the 
Fables, but in bringing to a keener edge whatever 
there is of working quality or "cash value" — as 
James would say — in Christian Science. 

If my perspective of this subject is wrong, and 
I am blinded by beams in my own eyes, and see 
beams in Mrs. Eddy's teachings where I should 
not even find the mote, I believe I am sincere 
when I say that I will be truly grateful to the 
combined intelligences that will remove the beam 
and give to me a clear vision. 

If Mrs. Eddy's Book, Science and Health, is 
a revelation direct from God, and is His fullest 
and final expression to the peoples of this earth, — 
as she informs us it is, and as tens of thousands 
of people believe today, — it is highly important 
that you and I become cognizant of this great, 
new truth. On the other hand, if, — as my per- 
spective gives, — Mrs. Eddy got from another 
"mortal" a system of healing that brings physio- 
logical results, and expanded it into a religion and 
commercialized not only the healing system but 
the religion as well, — prostituting thereby the 
most sacred department of human experience, it is 
highly important we should become cognizant of 



4 PREFACE 

this truth. It is of you that I ask co-operation in 
sifting the wheat from the chaff; separating the 
sheep from the mischievous goats ; the Facts from 
the Fables of this "religion" and "Science." 

Healthy tissue wishes to be seen and struggles 
to get to the light. Disease germs seek dark and 
hidden corners, for light is inimical to them. 
Health Boards seek to throw the rays of light into 
all darkened corners, that mischief breeding 
germs may be eradicated. The Panama Canal is 
a monument to the value of physical sanitation 
and to the bravery of achievement. 

We recognize a mental as well as a physical 
hygiene, and give it a place of importance side by 
side with the physical. Those systems of belief 
that teach under cover of secrecy, — and cry "let 
us alone" when the intelligence of the world 
wishes to make examination of the nature of the 
doctrines, — need to be put under the glass. 

My confidence in Public Opinion is large, when 
the public has correct data to work from. Com- 
mercialism and personal ambition — in this age of 
individualism run riot — furnishes to the public 
much false data from which to form its conclu- 
sions; thus the crass superstitions of this enlight- 
ened age. I ask you to help me that we may lay 
before the whole public correct data upon the sub- 
ject of this book. I will revise any page of it that 
together we determine needs it. We can't — as a 
race — afford to be wrong. All that is wrong with 
us is that we see through a glass darkly. 

I believe that the most important business of 



PREFACE S 

the human race is to get its religion right. I can 
say with Sir Oliver Lodge: "The region of a 
true religion and a completer science are one." 
If we find that there is "cash-value," to a small or 
greater extent, in some ambitious person's relig- 
ious philosophy, it behooves us to seek out the 
pragmatic fact, or secret, and make it common 
property. 

If we find — as in Christian Science — a certain 
"cash-value/' a certain truth that works ; and we 
find it copyrighted, and branded, and sold for 
cash in advance, — at prices such as no monopoly 
of material commodities ever was guilty of, — we 
may be sure to find diseased tissue in the system. 
So great is the demand for the "cash-value" in 
this practical age, that the religion that gives a 
measure of it may befog the mind of the seeker, 
after he holds in his hands the "cash" paid to him. 
May we not call it a "tip," since it is not a Living! 
Seeing the "tip," he will barter away the Lord 
for it, and through the agency of Christian Sci- 
ence this is being done every day. 

I do not believe that we are yet ready to con- 
strue the word Christ to mean that which any 
adventurer may claim a corner on, and commer- 
cialize into a monopoly. I have spoken with con- 
viction when, in the body of this book, I have 
used the words descriptive of the claims of Chris- 
tian Science, — "the commercialization of the Holy 
Ghost, the syndication of the Messiah." 

I will be severely criticised by Scientists and 
their friends for reviewing the personality and 



6 PREFACE 

characteristics of their "Revelator." I have no 
apology to make for having done so. I only have 
an explanation, which is this : 

Christian Science is Mrs. Eddy. Every one of 
her fundamental teachings has in it her character- 
istics. Her doctrines are her best biographers. 
To understand Christian Science, one must know 
the characteristics of the person who made it, and 
who is governing it Even the time honored pre- 
mise, "God is All in All," when treated by Mrs. 
Eddy, has degenerated into a soulless abstraction. 
There is no love left in it. Mrs. Eddy was her- 
self wanting in that greatest human asset. She* 
did away with the memorials of Jesus. The rea- 
son for this will be found in her dominant char- 
acteristic, greed. What may at first sight appear 
to be monumental egotism, comes to find its true 
place in the word greed. Every year of her his- 
tory bears out this conclusion. 

Mrs. Eddy took petition out of prayer, because 
she was not a woman of prayer herself. She 
never acknowledged a fault, but always shifted it 
upon someone else; thus she would not leave the 
words of the Lord's Prayer alone which say: 
"forgive us our sins/' but changed them into non- 
committal words. She took the Lord out of the 
Twenty-third Psalm and gave the romantic of 
her followers opportunity to see her in it. Her 
diatribes upon Marriage and propagation are 
biographies of her. 

She always would rule or ruin. That is seen 
in her claim of Divine guidance and inspiration. 



PREFACE 7 

She must be the fulfilment, must give the "abso- 
lute letter of truth/' so that all the works of men 
of science and philosophy, which do not bolster 
up her doctrines, must be wrong. She can com- 
fortably use these words to describe her own 
work: "undivorced from truth, uncontaminated 
and unfettered by human hypotheses, and author- 
ized by Christ'' ; and just as comfortably use these 
words to describe thinkers like William James and 
Oliver Lodge: "but evil ties its wagon-load of 
offal to the divine chariots, — or seeks so to do, — 
that its vileness may be christened purity, and its 
darkness get consolation from borrowed scintilla- 
tions." 

I have had friends admonish me with these 
words : "If you want to carry weight with your 
work, don't let any levity enter it." I have had to 
reply : "You can't be serious for long at a time 
at a vaudeville ; they won't let you. Every propo- 
sition laid down by the Leader of Christian Sci- 
ence, followed to its logical conclusion, leads into 
the ridiculous." In handling a subject like this, 
where you find that the author seemed never to 
have been honest, recourse in the humorous be- 
comes a helpful escapement. It saves one from 
other sins. 

There is a school of non-resistants who say, 
"Don't disturb it. We know that there is false - 
hood and fraud about it, but let it alone and it will 
die of its own destruction, or undergo purification 
because all things will become right. It is doing 
some good by healing people." 



8 PREFACE 

Is not this a lazy way of doing the world's 
work? If Christian Science teachers have the 
gift of the laying on of hands, and if Christian 
Science is the Holy Ghost, why does it cost so 
much — one hundred dollars, — and why will they 
not sell it to all who ask and are even willing to 
pay the price ? You must be elected to that priv- 
ilege, and pay for the election with much evidence 
of credulity and submissiveness. 

The trance medium has given us a deeper in- 
sight into the constitution of the human mind and 
its pow r ers. Must we bow in worship before her 
because of this, and accept with a gulp all the 
theories she gushes forth? There is a nucleus of 
truth ; some cash-value in every system of human 
belief. 

The function of the researchers is to do the 
diver's part; go below the surface and bring up 
to his reader the gems worth while. The diamond 
is found embedded deep in worthless clay. The 
clay must not be made into images and worshiped 
because it held the precious stone. 

The greatest exhibitions of healing for some 
centuries have resulted from most faulty premises. 
Have we not wisdom enough among us, and 
faultless religion enough among us to rescue the 
diamonds from the clay of human experience, 
give the gem without price to those in need, and 
turn the gaze away from the clay, upward to Him 
who knows every human need? I believe we 
have. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Sketches From the Early History 

of Mary Baker Eddy n 

II Mrs. Glover- Patterson-Eddy's First 

Knowledge of Mind Cure 29 

III Mrs. Eddy Trains Her First Suc- 

cessful Healer — Publishes Sci- 
ence and Health 51 

IV Malicious Animal Magnetism, the 

Christian Science Devil 71 

V The Romantic Element in Chris- 
tian Science 

VI The Claims of Christian Science 

Are Monumental 135 

VII The Commercialization of a "Reve- 
lation" 167 

VIII Mrs. Eddy's Philosophy 189 

IX Mrs. Eddy's Philosophy (Con- 
tinued) 213 

X Marriage — A Christian Science 

Sin 239 

XI Jesus Is Not the Christ In Chris- 
tian Science 253 

XII The Problem of Sin and Reality. . 263 

XIII The "Mother Church"— A Cen- 
tralized Power 275 



10 CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIV Christian Science Healing 291 

XV Christian Science Healing (Con- 
tinued) 303 

XVI Christian Science Healing (Con- 
tinued) 326 

XVII There Is a "Joker" In Every Chris- 
tian Science Move 346 



CHAPTER I. 

SKETCHES FROM THE EARLY HISTORY OF MARY 
BAKER G. EDDY. 

That anyone should write a history of Mary 
Baker Eddy, or comment at length upon her life 
and works, is rather an adverse commentary upon 
the age, than a compliment to her. That she has 
become widely known as a leader and propagan- 
dist, with a following numbering into the tens 
of thousands, is due to fortuitous and accidental 
circumstances, and to a fault in the race, and not 
to any superiority of character or learning. 

Some of the greatest fortunes of the day were 
built through the opportunities open for exploita- 
tion because of the lack of vigilance of the 
public, or of those whose place it was to know 
the conditions and to protect the people. Some 
of these fortunes were so ill-gotten as to have 
made the public cautious, even in the acceptance 
of the millions proffered as gifts of benefaction. 
These men have histories written about them, 
and their names are household names. Their 
lives are a study in moral pathology, and prove 
useful in forcibly calling attention to social and 
economic departments long neglected. Much of 
the progress of the human race has been bought 
at a great price, paid for the selfishness of oppor- 
tunists. 

11 



12 FACTS AND FABLES 

Only here and there do we find a leader who 
is so unselfish as to do the good and service to 
the race that lies at his hand. Too often through 
his egotism or his greed does he leave a vast 
work to be undone by others before the race has 
become free from the virus of his selfseeking. 

We recognize today a mental, or intellectual, 
as well as a physical, hygiene. We deplore the 
spread of doctrines that mean intellectual suicide 
to those who become inoculated. The race has 
suffered and toiled long and patiently to arrive at 
the present outlook upon its highway at which it 
has become freed from its low understanding 
and superstitions which held it in check and 
bondage. If, then, we meet such doctrines 
brought fresh to this age, and observe them take 
root and spread like a disease, it behooves us to 
take thought concerning them as we would the 
spread of a contagion that only affects the body. 

When I say that Mrs. Eddy through her teach- 
ings, called Christian Science, has given a disease 
to the race, wherever the culture takes, I am 
speaking soberly and only after most thorough 
investigation and consideration. A disease sel- 
dom takes effect in a perfectly normal and 
healthy body. The normality of the body affords 
its own immunity. A mental disease seldom takes 
root where the mind is normal and properly sup- 
ported with knowledge. When the body is 
racked with pain and suffering the mind is in ill 
shape to exercise philosophical discrimination, 
and the sheerest nonsense may be insinuated into 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 13 

it through a potion that gives relief from suffer- 
ing, and healing to the body. Herein lies the 
keynote to the steady progress made by this cult. 

Seldom does it ever occur that a person 
healthy in body and mind takes up the philosophy 
propounded in the book "Science and Health," 
and of his own accord acquiesces to the doctrines 
taught, and becomes an ardent adherent. Intel- 
lectual discrimination gives immunity against the 
inoculation of Mrs. Eddy's teachings. Many are 
caught unprepared, or at times when they are 
willing to sacrifice the intellect for physical re- 
lief. This w r ill be made clearer in another chap- 
ter. 

The words below from John Fiske are elo- 
quently descriptive of the intellectual influence 
of Christian Science: 

"Indeed one of the most primitive and funda- 
mental shapes which the relation of cause and 
effect takes in the savage mind is the assumed 
connection between disease or death and some 
malevolent personal agency — the minds of civil- 
ized people have become familiar with the con- 
ception of natural law, and that conception has 
simply stifled the old superstition as clover chokes 
out weeds — the disposition to believe was one of 
the oldest inheritances of the human mind, while 
the capacity for estimating evidence in cases of 
physical causation is one of its latest and most 
laborious acquisitions/' 

I cannot point you to a religious leader since 
Mahomet whose system of philosophy demands of 



14 FACTS AND FABLES 

its followers such abject slavery of conscience, 
and such intellectual suicide as does the teach- 
ings of Mrs. Eddy carried to their logical con- 
clusions. While I make these sweeping state- 
ments in this opening chapter without proofs, I 
promise the most conclusive proofs of every po- 
sition I take in succeeding chapters. 

Since, or before, the founders of Mormonism, 
no religious leader has taken such liberty to 
shape the Bible to serve his ends for ecclesiastical 
power and commercial gain, and trailed divine 
inspiration in the mire of personal ambition and 
profit, as has the leader of Christian Science. 

A friend said to me, referring to my writings 
on this subject, "I see you are raising the devil. " 
"No," I replied, "Mrs. Eddy has resurrected him 
out of the dark ages of her untutored mind; and 
I am trying to destroy him through facts and 
logic." 

She is fond of referring to herself as the great- 
est discoverer of this or any other age since the 
advent and mission of Christ. Touch her works 
at any point and you are never allowed to escape 
the flaunting sign-boards of this announcement. 
It, no doubt, will sound hazardous and presump- 
tious when I say that I will prove that the only 
thing she discovered is the Christian Science 
devil, and that he is the most contradictory and 
misshapen creature of that family that can be 
found outside the thickest jungles of Africa. 
Furthermore, I shall show who her devil is, and 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 15 

unless you hasten to get inside her city of refuge, 
the identity may become uncomfortable. 

Goethe said: "Boldness has power, genius, 
and magic in it." For boldness and audacity I 
can point you to no like figure in history that will 
compare with this discoverer. It is no mean 
undertaking to tinker the Trinity to meet one's 
own ends. When I discovered that she had ap- 
propriated the fourth wall of the New Jerusalem, 
my astonishment was expressed by puzzled and 
mingled feelings; but on shortly finding that she 
had absorbed the whole Celestial City I discov- 
ered that I must needs protect myself against 
surprises too great to survive. This I did by 
acknowledging that she was welcome to the 
whole universe, and it was well I did, for I found 
that when she was done with her merger that 
there was slim picking left for any other ambi- 
tious mortal. 

The Holy Ghost did not escape her grasp, but 
she penned it up within the covers of her book 
"Science and Health," and walled it about with 
a succession of copyrights, and it is now dis- 
pensed at three dollars per volume. The book is 
the only divinely ordained pastor on this planet, 
and outside of this book and her other writings 
all is unstable and self -destructive error — the 
work of the devil. 

When she had finished illuminating the Book 
of Revelation, all prophecies had been fulfilled 
for this planet, and she was the favored one to 
complete God's work for this globe. The Mes- 



16 FACTS AND FABLES 

siah has come again through her, so that you may 
now have that off your mind. During her life 
she made Him work overtime filling her coffers 
with gold. Since her decease a self -perpetuating 
board of five directors are conducting the monop- 
oly, and unlike the scene at the foot of the cross 
where the soldiers cast lots for Christ's raiment, 
at present there are suits in the courts of the 
land to determine who shall own Him. 

Since she has trafficked in the tenderest senti- 
ments and most sacred institutions of the Chris- 
tian world, and turned them into millions of 
dollars, benighting the minds of a multitude of 
people, it behooves us to look into the history 
and cause of so audacious and powerful a move- 
ment. Her principal writing is the book "Sci- 
ence and Health," of which she said : "No human 
tongue or pen taught me the science contained 
in this book, Science and Health, and neither 
tongue or pen can overthrow it." In the words 
of St. John: "He shall give you another Com- 
forter, that He may abide with you forever. 
This Comforter I understand to be Divine Sci- 
ence." 

"Our Master healed the sick, practiced Chris- 
tian Science healing, and taught the generalities 
of its divine Principle to his students ; but He left 
no definite rule for demonstrating His Principle 
of healing or preventing disease. This remained 
to be discovered through Christian Science. A 
pure affection takes form in goodness, but Sci- 



■J\ 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 17 

ence alone reveals its Principle and demonstrates 
its rules."' 

"Even the Scripture gave no direct interpreta- 
tion of the Scientific basis for demonstrating the 
spiritual Principle of healing, until our Heavenly 
Father saw fit, through the Key to the Scrip- 
tures, in Science and Health, to unlock this mys- 
tery of Godliness." 

"The second appearing of Jesus is unquestion- 
ably the spiritual advent of the advancing idea 
of God as in Christian Science." 

"The opinions of men cannot be substituted 
for God's revelation." 

"Outside of this Science all is unstable error." 

"Deific power cannot be apprehended until 
Divine Science becomes the interpreter." 

Since the only source from which to receive 
the above blessings and salvation, is the book 
and teachings of "Science and Health," we will 
not begrudge the hour's study in following the 
history of its advent. 

"Christian Science as it stands today, is a kind 
of autobiography in cryptogram; its form was 
determined by a temperament, and it retains all 
the convolutions of the curiously duplex personal- 
ity about which it grew." 1 

As this statement is essentially true, the reli- 
gion now in vogue shaping the lives of so many 
of Mrs. Eddy's followers cannot be understood 
in its true light without a knowledge of the 

i Georgine Milmine. McClure 's History of Mary Baker 
Eddy. 



18 FACTS AND FABLES 

leader who inspired it and whose personality 
wields such a mystical influence over the more 
romantic of her cult, even after her decease. 
That many worship her as Christ is worshiped 
is not to be wondered at, since it was the studied 
effort of her last decades to secure this exalta- 
tion. 

"Science and Health is built upon the sand of 
metaphysics, and on nothing else. It is the most 
successful effort which the modern world has seen 
to make popular a philosophical abstraction. It is, 
to be sure, biography, but the biography of a sin- 
gle soul, and that a soul which has not entered 
deeply into life. If the author of Science and 
Health has ever yielded herself in a self -forgetful 
outpour of affection to any human soul, there is 
no trace of any such experience in her book. 
Once at least she has reproved a follower for ex- 
pecting to receive from her a love individualized. 
The love she has for man she gives to man as an 
abstract composite. No one would think of call- 
ing her what Henry Drummond once called 
D wight L. Moody, a 'big-human.' There are no 
heart-throbs in her book. There is nothing 
human in it." 1 

From the above estimate of the book one would 
hardly select its author as a Christian leader to 
build upon and add to the works of Jesus, which 
are pulsating with love and compassion. In the 
very opening of her book she gives without com- 
ment the quotation: 

i Lyman P. Powells Christian Science, p. 25. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 19 

"I, I, I, I, itself I, 

The inside and outside, the what and the why, 
The when and the where, the low and the high, 
All I, I, I, I, itself I." 

When you have taken the I, and her devil — 
mortal mind— out of her book you have not much 
left, for the god she postulates is a selfish being 
interested only in himself. This will be made 
clear when we come to deal with her theology. 

She was one of the few mothers who cared lit- 
tle for her own child. Her relatives and neigh- 
bors reared her son, George W. Glover. Her 
own father said of her: "Mary acts just like an 
old ewe sheep that won't own its lamb. She 
won't have it near her." Her first husband had 
died in the south and she being left penniless was 
assisted to her parents' home in New Hampshire 
— the money being furnished by the Masons. 
There her son and only child was born. 

The young widow had no means of support 
and lived for some years under the parental roof, 
and with her sister, Mrs. Tilton. Few acts of 
her life show the real character more than her 
attitude toward her own child. Mrs. Eddy's ac- 
counts about herself never coincide with the 
facts in the case. It will require some exposition 
of her history to make this fully apparent to all 
readers. There are two Mrs. Eddy's to be ac- 
counted for. The real Mrs. Eddy must be found 
in the facts of her life; the ideal Mrs. Eddy is 
an artificiality created by her own misrepresenta- 
tions with the aid of paid artists and critics. 



20 FACTS AND FABLES 

The following paragraph is from Georgine 
Milmine's "Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy." This 
history I wish to recommend to all readers. It 
was first published in McClure's Magazine in 
1 907- 1 908. It is now published in book form by 
Doubleday, Page & Co. : 

"On the whole, it is no wonder that Mrs. 
Glover was not taken seriously in her own town. 
Artificiality spread over all her acts, and in no 
relation in life did she impress even her nearest 
friends or her own family with genuine feeling 
or sincerity. Indeed, she was bitterly censured 
in those years for the more active faults of self- 
ish and unfilial conduct and a strange lack of the 
sense of maternal duty. In 185 1 Mrs. Glover 
had given her son, George, to Mahala Sanborn. 
The boy having reached the age of seven, was 
growing too large to be sent around from one 
house to another to be looker after. Mrs. Glover's 
mother had died of typhoid fever in November, 
1849, an d Mrs. Tilton was growing each year 
more impatient and weary of Mrs. Glover's con- 
duct. So when Mahala Sanborn married Russel 
Cheney and was preparing to move away from 
Tilton, Mrs. Glover begged her to take George to 
live with her permanently. Mrs. Cheney, who 
was attached to the boy, at last consented to do so, 
and George accompanied her and her husband to 
their new home in North Groton, and was called 
by their name." 

This is the history of the son as the facts show. 
Mrs. Eddy's history as given by Georgine Mil- 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 21 

mine was collected with painstaking and at great 
expense. The editorial announcement in Mc- 
Clure's Magazine speaks as follows concerning 
the difficulties of investigation: 

"Certain difficulties face all investigators who 
seek the truth concerning Christian Science. 
Practically no assistance can be obtained from 
Christian Scientists themselves. Official docu- 
ments on this subject are frequently incorrect. 
Mrs. Eddy herself has published an autobiog- 
raphy which, in many points, does not agree with 
the statements of unprejudiced outsiders. She 
refuses to be consulted personally on the main 
facts of her own life. The Christian Science 
mind is unfriendly to independent investigation. 
It presupposes that anything even slightly un- 
favorable to Mrs. Eddy or to Christian Science 
is deliberate falsehood. The Church organiza- 
tion has also branded as 'forgeries' and 'counter- 
feits' documents which it has not seen. This 
mental attitude results from the Christian Sci- 
ence philosophy. It assumes that it has the truth 
— the mental illumination that sees things as they 
are; and that the rest of the world lives in error. 
Fundamentally it denies the evidence of the 
senses. It believes that such evidence is illusion ; 
and never to be accepted as truthworthy testi- 
mony against Mrs. Eddy or the Christian Sci- 
ence Church: Mrs. Eddy herself is the source of 
truth ; and her word, in the minds of the faithful, 
counts against that of all others." 

"Suppose Mrs. Eddy should commit a crime — 



22 FACTS AND FABLES 

rob a bank, for example" — the present writer 
asked a Christian Scientist closely in touch with 
his leader. "Suppose certain reputable persons — 
for example, the Mayor of Concord, the Gov- 
ernor of New Hampshire, President Roosevelt, 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Pope of 
Rome — saw her rob the bank. Suppose they all 
went upon the witness stand and swore that they 
saw her do this — would you believe their testi- 
mony?" "No," came the prompt response. "Why 
not?" The Christian Scientist murmured the 
word "hypnotism." That is, the forces of evil, 
working through hypnotism, might easily lead 
astray the senses of all these high-minded wit- 
nesses and force them to bear false testimony. 
"I should believe Mrs. Eddy against the state- 
ments of all the world," Christian Scientists fre- 
quently declare. "But if Mrs. Eddy herself told 
you that she committed this crime, would you 
then believe it?" "No." Indeed, Mrs. Eddy has 
explained away certain letters written by herself 
which tend to disprove her claim to the discovery 
of Christian Science, by saying that she wrote 
them while in a mesmeric state. 

"Necessarily, McClure's Magazine does not ac- 
cept these rules of evidence. It brings to bear 
upon the facts merely "mortal mind." It has the 
utmost confidence in the evidence of the senses. 
It will use these senses and not a certain esoteric 
philosophy, in determining the value of certain 
facts. It holds no argument for or against Chris- 
tian Science; and will simply tell the truth, as 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 23 

that truth is ascertained by the use of ordinary 
human faculties." 

From Mrs. Eddy's autobiography, "Retrospec- 
tion and Introspection,'' page 21, I wish to quote 
her own account of her motherhood. Her 
writings can best be understood viewed in the 
light of her true character. I regret to say, that 
I fail to find her modest and sincere. I am forced 
to the conclusion that she never told the truth 
if the false would serve her ends better. She 
says: 

"After returning to the paternal roof, I lost all 
my husband's property, except what money I had 
brought with me ; and remained with my parents 
until after my mother's decease. 

"A few months before my father's second 
marriage to Mrs. Elizabeth Patterson Duncan — 
sister of Lieutenant-Governor George W. Patter- 
son, of New York — my little son, about four 
years of age, was sent away from me, and put 
under the care of our family nurse, who had 
married, and resided in the northern part of New 
Hampshire. I had no training for self-support, 
and my home I regarded as very precious. The 
night before my child was taken from me, I 
knelt by his side throughout the dark hours, 
hoping for a vision of relief from this trial. The 
following lines were taken from my poem, 
'Mother's Darling/ written after this separa- 
tion: 

Thy smile through tears, as sunshine o'er the sea, 
Awoke new beauty in the surge's roll, 



24 FACTS AND FABLES 

Oh, life is dead, bereft of all, with thee, 
Star of my earthly hope, babe of my soul/ 

"My dominant thought in marrying again was 
to get back my child, but after our marriage his 
stepfather was not willing that he should have a 
home with me. A plot was consummated to keep 
us apart. The family to whose care he was com- 
mitted very soon removed to what was then 
regarded as the far West. 

"After his removal a letter /was read to my lit- 
tle son informing him that his mother was dead 
and buried. Without my knowledge he was ap- 
pointed a guardian, and I was then informed 
that my son was lost. Every means within my 
power was employed to find him, but without 
success. We never met again until he had 
reached the age of thirty-four, had a wife and 
two children, and by a strange providence learned 
that his mother still lived, and came to see me 
in Massachusetts." 

The marriage referred to in the above quota- 
tion was her marriage to her second husband, Dr. 
Patterson. He, like all her early associations, 
had to come in for his share of misrepresentation 
when the artificial Mrs. Glover-Patterson-Eddy 
was being created for the public view. 

Mrs. Eddy — then Mrs. Patterson — moved to 
North Groton, where the Cheneys and her son, 
George Glover, lived. Though living in the same 
small place she saw little of her son, not because 
she could not, but because she did not wish to. 
In 1857 the Cheneys moved to Enterprise, Minn., 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 25 

taking George Glover with them. The Cheneys 
wrote frequently to friends and relatives in 
North Groton and Tilton giving details of 
George's progress. Mrs. Patterson-Eddy knew 
all about him; knew when he joined the army in 
1 86 1 ; and wrote a letter to P. P. Quimby in 1865 
f elling of George's illness in Enterprise, Minn., 
w r here he had returned after the war. Mrs. 
Eddy's own accounts are her severest accusers 
and indictments. Mrs. Eddy never in her whole 
long life arose superior to the dominant and un- 
fortunate characteristics of her girlhood and 
early married life. These characteristics are to 
be found in their extremest expression in her 
writings, her method of organization, and her 
executive sway. Our study of her works would 
not be complete without this background of early 
history. We will let the "McClure's History" 
give us a glimpse of her early life. 

"Indeed, Mary was the type of girl that strong 
men and women instinctively champion. At times 
she appealed by her sweetness and amiability, and 
in her best moments was the embodiment of 
gaiety. More potently, her continual ill health 
aroused their sympathy. She was extremely 
nervous and hysterical, and, as child and woman, 
subject to certain violent seizures. Mary Baker's 
'fits,' as outsiders rather crudely called them, are 
still a household word among her old friends. 
They frequently came on without the slightest 
warning. At times the attack resembled a con- 
vulsion, Mary pitched headlong on the floor, and 



26 FACTS AND FABLES 

rolled and kicked, writhing and screaming in ap- 
parent agony. Again she dropped limp and lay- 
motionless. At other times, like a cataleptic, she 
lay rigid, almost in a state of suspended anima- 
tion. The family worked over her, but usually 
in vain. Mark Baker, standing upright in his 
wagon and lashing his horses, would drive for 
Dr. Ladd, the family physician. An old neigh- 
bor remembered him driving thus and shouting 
all the way: "Mary is dying." The family 
actually believed that she was. For years they 
expected that Mary would end her days in one 
of her hysterical attacks, and went to every ex- 
treme to prevent them. As a precautionary 
measure they gave in to all the girl's whims." 

Those "fits," that her physician of that time 
characterized as "hysteria mingled with bad tem- 
per," remained with her into old age, and prob- 
ably to the end of her life, if the truth of her 
last years in seclusion were known. In her girl- 
hood they served the purpose of gaining her will 
with those about her, a most selfish tyranny, to 
be sure. In later life, when her ways were 
brooked, she would "pull off" an advanced kind. 
Like the Mormon prophets she would pull down 
a revelation from God to clinch the situation. 
On one occasion she seemed to have acted upon 
the influence of her devil, for she wrote one day 
to her publisher that "God, our God, has just 
told me who to recommend to you for the editor 
of the Christian Science Journal"; but the next 
day she withdrew the recommendation, saying 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 27 

that "It was not God evidently that suggested 
that thought, but the person who suggests many 
things mentally," evidently meaning one of her 
enemies she thought was always pursuing her, 
who finally evolved into the "Christian Science" 
devil. 

In 1853 Mrs. Eddy, then Mrs. Glover, married 
Dr. Patterson, an itinerant dentist. At this time 
she was a confirmed invalid and spent much of 
her time in bed. On the day of her marriage he 
carried her downstairs from her bedroom, and 
back again after the ceremony. Her ill health 
continued intermittently through the succeeding 
twelve years. She insisted upon being rocked or 
swung by the hour. So tyrannizing was she that 
her sister finally forbade her the shelter of her 
home. The rupture was never healed. "Old 
residents of Franklin still recall the day when Dr. 
Patterson came driving into town with a large 
wagon containing his wife's cradle." 1 

While he was unsuccessful financially, and 
their life was one of poverty, he exhibited ad- 
mirable patience in efforts to adjust himself to 
her tyrannical eccentricities. Finally his patience 
gave out, and explaining to her people that he 
could endure it no longer, made such provision as 
he could for her support, and left her. In 1873 
she obtained a divorce on the ground of deser- 
tion. Alfred Farlow, head of the "Christian 
Science" publication committee, says, in his 
"Christian Science Historical Facts," that Mrs. 

iMeClure's, Life of Ma*/ Baker Eddy. 



28 FACTS AND FABLES 

Patterson obtained a divorce because of the doc- 
tor's adultery." The court records show that the 
divorce was obtained on the ground of desertion. 

It is plain to see why the word "adultery' ' was 
used by her apologist, when we recall her claims 
of Christlike grace, — his denunciation of marry- 
ing again while having a divorced husband living 
— excusing it upon the one ground only — and 
then remember that she married Gilbert A. Eddy 
in 1877, and Dr. Patterson lived until 1896. 

In her "Retrospection and Introspection" only 
a few lines are given to her marriage to Dr. Pat- 
terson, and they are disparaging of him. She 
says in this chapter "Marriage and Parentage" 
that "Mere historic incidents and personal events 
are frivolous and of no moment. The human 
history needs to be revised, and the material rec- 
ord expunged." 

She attempts to cover this brevity by follow- 
ing with the words : "The Gospel narratives bear 
brief testimony even to the life of our great 
Master. His spiritual noumenon and phenome- 
non silenced portraiture." 

Throughout all of her writings you will find 
her shielding herself behind Christ. When in a 
tight place she will suddenly quote a vivid passage 
of Scripture, which tends to divert the mind from 
the puzzle she has raised, but failed to explain. 
This is a favorite trick which few of her readers 
recognize as such. 



CHAPTER II. 

MRS. GLOVER PATTERSON EDDY'S FIRST KNOWL- 
EDGE OF MIND-CURE. 

It was at this stage in 1862, when Mrs. Eddy 
was forty years old and had been an invalid for 
some years, bed-ridden most of the time, that the 
turning point in her life came through the heal- 
ing and personality of P. P. Quimby of Portland, 
Maine. Her history from this point on is of 
most vital importance in our study both of her 
personality and its influence upon her works and 
her followers. 

Horatio W. Dresser, in "Health and the Inner 
Life," page 49, has given a personal sketch of 
P. P. Quimby which I quote at some length : 

"I found a kindly gentleman who met me with 
such sympathy and gentleness that I immediately 
felt at ease. He seemed to know at once the 
attitude of mind of those who applied to him 
for help, and adapted himself to them accord- 
ingly. His years of study of the human mind, of 
sickness in all its forms, and of the prevailing 
religious beliefs, gave him the ability to see 
through the opinions, doubts and fears of those 
who sought his aid, and put him in instant sym- 
pathy with their mental attitude. He seemed to 
know that I had come to him feeling that he was 
the last resort, and with but little faith in him 

29 



30 FACTS AND FABLES 

or his mode of treatment. But, instead of tell- 
ing me that I was not sick, he sat beside me, and 
explained to me what my sickness was, how I 
got into the condition, and the way I could have 
been taken out of it through the right under- 
standing. He seemed to see through the situa- 
tion from the beginning, and explained the cause 
and effect so clearly that I could see a little of 
what he meant. My case was so serious, how- 
ever, that he did not at first tell me that I could 
be made well. But there was such an effect pro- 
duced by his explanation that I felt a new hope 
within me, and began to get well from that day. 

"He continued to explain my case from day to 
day, giving me some idea of his theory and its 
relation to what I had been taught to believe, and 
sometimes sat silent with me for a short time. I 
did not understand much that he said, but I felt 
'the spirit and the life' that came with his words; 
and I found myself gaining steadily. Some of 
these pithy sayings of his remained constantly in 
mind, and were very helpful in preparing the way 
for a better understanding of his thought, such, 
for instance, as his remark, that 'Whatever we 
believe, that we create/ or, 'Whatever opinion 
we put into a thing, that we take out of it/ 

"Among those in waiting were usually several 
friends or pupils of Mr. Quimby, who often met 
in his rooms to talk over the truths he was teach- 
ing them. It was a rare privilege for those who 
were waiting their turn for treatment to listen 
to these discussions between the strangers and 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 31 

these disciples of his; also to get a sentence now 
and then from the doctor himself, who would 
often express some thought which would set us 
to thinking deeply or talking earnestly. 

"In this way Mr. Ouimby did considerable 
teaching; and this was his only opportunity to 
make his ideas known. He did not teach his 
philosophy in a systematic way in classes or lec- 
tures. His personal explanations to each patient, 
and his readiness to explain his ideas to all who 
were interested, brought him in close sympathy 
to all who went to him for help. But further 
than that he had no time for teaching, as he was 
always overrun with patients. 

"Those were days to be remembered. One 
who never saw him can hardly imagine the con- 
viction of truth that one felt when he uttered a 
sentence. He seemed to see through all the falsi- 
ties of life, and far into the depths and into the 
spirit of things ; and his penetrating vision was so 
keen and true that one felt as if in the presence 
of a great light that could destroy the darkness 
of all that stood in his way. 

"We all loved him truly and devotedly, for 
how could we help it? He was full of love for 
humanity, and he was constantly laboring for 
others without regard to himself. It has always 
seemed strange to me that anyone who knew him 
and was taught by him could ever forget his 
loving sympathy and kindness of heart. He was 
one that inspired all honest souls with a convic- 
tion of his own sincerity. He had nothing to 



32 FACTS AND FABLES 

gain or lose, for his own life was a constant over- 
flowing of the spirit of truth in which he lived. 

"Consequently, he freely gave of all he had, 
and if any one evinced any particular interest in 
his theory he would lend his manuscripts and 
allow his early writings to be copied. Those in- 
terested would in turn write articles about his 
'theory' or 'the truth/ as he called it, and bring 
them to him for his criticism. But no one 
thought of making use of these articles while he 
lived, or even to try his mode of treatment in a 
public way, for all looked up to him as the master 
whose works so far surpassed anything that they 
could do that they dared not try. 

"It w r as also at this time, 1862, that Mrs. Eddy 
(then Mrs. Patterson), author of Science and 
Health, was treated by Mr. Quimby, and I well 
remember the day when she was helped up the 
steps to his office on the occasion of her first 
visit for mental treatment. She was cured by 
him, and afterwards became very much interested 
in his theory. But she put her own construction 
on much of his teaching, and developed a doc- 
trine which is for the most part a one-sided in- 
terpretation of the Quimby philosophy. 

"This does not seem strange when one con- 
siders how much there was to learn from a man 
as original as Mr. Quimby, and one who had so 
long investigated the human mind. Unless one 
had passed through a similar experience, and 
penetrated into the center of things as he had, 
one could not appreciate his explanations suffi- 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 33 

icently to carry out his particular line of thought. 
Hence, none of the systems that have sprung up 
since Mr. Quimby's death, although originating 
in his researches and practice, have justly repre- 
sented his philosophy/' 1 

Mr. Quimby seems to have been a man of the 
deepest sincerity. Having healed himself of long 
standing ills, and treated hundreds of patients 
successfully, his faith in his theories knew no 
bounds. He was philanthropic by nature, and 
many patients were treated by him without re- 
muneration. His absorbing desire was to put his 
teachings into permanent form for the benefit of 
humanity. In six years he produced ten volumes 
of manuscript. His son, George A. Quimby, as- 
sisted him in this work and has these manuscripts 
in his possession today. 

He was not strong as an organizer, but pains- 
taking and persevering in his investigations. He 
believed that he had discovered a science that 
would ultimately redeem mankind of its sickness 
and much of its sins. Such patients as were in- 
terested beyond their individual cure were given 
every opportunity to receive the benefits of his 
knowledge, even to the permission to copy from 
his manuscripts. 

He called his teachings the "Science of Health/' 
twice he described it as "Christian Science," and 
many times as the "Science of Christ." 

Georgine Milmine's estimate of the central 
ideas of Quimby's philosophy is illuminating: 

i Health and the Inner Life, G. P. Putnam 's Sons, publ. 



34 FACTS AND FABLES 

"In every individual, according to Quimby, 
there were two persons. The first was the Truth, 
Goodness and Wisdom into which he had been 
naturally born. In this condition he was the 
child of God, the embodiment of Divine Love 
and Divine Principle. This man had no flesh, no 
bones, and no blood; he did not breathe, eat, or 
sleep. He could never sin, never become sick, 
never die. He knew nothing of matter, or of the 
physical senses; he was simply Spirit, Wisdom, 
Principle, Truth, Mind, Science. Quimby, above 
all, loved to call him the 'scientific man.' This 
first person was, so to speak, encrusted in another 
man, formed of matter, sense, and all the ac- 
cumulated 'errors' of time. This man had what 
Quimby called 'knowledge' — that is, the ideas 
heaped up by the human mind. According to 
Quimby this second man held the first, or truly 
scientific, man in bondage. The bonds consisted 
in false human beliefs. The idea, above all, that 
held him enthralled, was that of Disease. The 
man of Science knew nothing of sickness. The 
man of Ignorance, however, consciously and un- 
consciously, had been impregnated for centuries 
with this belief. His whole life, from earliest 
infancy, was encompassed with suggestions of 
this kind. Parents constantly suggest illness to 
their children; doctors preach it twenty-four 
hours a day ; the clergy, newspapers, books, ordi- 
nary conversation — the whole modern world, 
thought Quimby, had engaged in a huge con- 
spiracy to familiarize the human mind with this 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 35 

false concept. This process had been going on 
for thousands of years, until finally unhealthy 
ideas had triumphed over healthy; beliefs had got 
the upper hand of truth; knowledge had sup- 
planted wisdom; ignorance had taken the place 
of science; matter had superseded mind; Jesus 
had dethroned Christ. ,,1 

Dr. W. F. Evans, a patient under Quimby a 
few months after Mrs. Eddy, in his book pub- 
lished in 1872, gives his estimate of his healer 
and teacher as follows : 

"There is a profound philosophy underlying 
the cures effected by Christ, and a distinct school 
of medicine may be erected upon it. One of the 
marked characteristics of the system is the dis- 
carding of all drugs and chemical agencies, and 
placing all reliance on the psychical forces and 
remedies. It recognizes the supreme controlling 
forces of the mind over the body, the inner over 
the outward man, both in health and disease. 
The body seems to have been viewed by him not 
as the real self -hood, but as only the shadow of 
the soul, the inner life of man. It corresponds 
to or echoes the states and movements of the in- 
terior nature. Disease is not so much a mere 
physical derangement, in its primary principle, as 
it is an abnormal mental condition, an inharmony 
of the psychical element and force — a wrong be- 
lief, a falsity. This fixed belief, that was viewed 
as the root of the morbid outward condition, is 
not a mere intellectual act, and has no reference 

* McClure 's, 1907, p. 345. 



36 FACTS AND FABLES 

to a creed, but represents an inward condition, 
the state of the inner man, what the German 
writers on the philosophy of mind denominate 
the interior consciousness. This is the govern- 
ing element, the controlling principle. The bodily 
state is the index to it. 'As a man thinketh in 
his heart, so is he/ Disease being in its root a 
wrong belief, in the sense explained above, change 
that belief and we cure the disease. By faith we 
are thus made whole. There is a law here the 
world will some time understand and use in the 
cure of disease that afflict mankind. The late 
Dr. Quimby of Portland, Maine, one of the most 
successful healers of this or any age, embraced 
this view of the nature of disease, and by a long 
succession of most remarkable cures, effected by 
psychopathic remedies, at the same time proved 
the theory and the efficiency of that mode of 
treatment. Had he lived in a remote age or coun- 
try, the wonderful facts which occurred in his 
practice would have now been deemed mythical 
or miraculous. He seemed to reproduce the won- 
ders of the Gospel history. But all this was only 
an exhibition of the force of suggestion, or the 
action of the law of faith, over a patient in the 
impressible condition." 

Mrs. Eddy's first visit to Quimby lasted about 
three weeks, during which time she was healed 
of her spinal trouble. She became absorbed in 
his philosophy and for the first time in her life 
she found that which had in it sufficient interest 
for her to turn her attention away from her ills, 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 37 

which had been her center of energy. It was a 
turning point from an invalidism to an active 
ambition to be and to do. 

She became an ardent student of his philosophy 
and his methods of treatment. He permitted her 
to copy his manuscripts and gave much time to 
the explanation of his theories. She arrived in 
Portland, Maine, October, 1862. A few weeks 
later, November 7th, she sent the following letter 
to the Portland Courier, which gives her esti- 
mate of Quimby and his work. The reader will 
do well to read her tributes to her healer with 
care, for another personality of Mrs. Eddy in 
1888 gives another and quite different estimate. 
The reader must weigh the evidence and draw 
his own conclusions of her veracity : 

"When our Shakespeare decided that 'there 
are more things in this world than were dreamed 
of in your philosophy/ I cannot say of a verity 
that he had a fore-knowledge of P. P. Quimby. 
And when the school platonic anatomized the soul 
and divided it into halves to be united by ele- 
mentary attractions, and heathen philosophers 
averred that old Chaos in sullen silence brooded 
o'er the earth until her inimitable form was 
hatched from the egg of night, I would not at 
present decide whether the fallacy was found in 
their premises or conclusions, never having dated 
my existence before the flood. When the startled 
alchemist discovered, as he supposed, an univer- 
sal solvent, or the philosopher's stone, and the 
most daring Archimedes invented a lever where- 



38 FACTS AND FABLES 

withal to pry up the universe, I cannot say in 
either the principle obtained in nature or in art, 
or that it worked well, having never tried it. 
But, when by a falling apple an immutable law 
was discovered, we gave it the crown of science, 
which is incontrovertible and capable of demon- 
stration, hence that was wisdom and truth. 
When from the evidence of the senses, my rea- 
son takes cognizance of truth, although it may 
appear in quite a miraculous view, I must 
acknowledge that as science which is truth un- 
investigated. Hence the following demonstra- 
tion : 

"Three weeks since I quitted my nurse and 
sick room en route for Portland. The belief of 
my recovery had died out of the hearts of those 
most anxious for it. With this mental and physi- 
cal depression I first visited P. P. Quimby, and in 
less than one week from that time I ascended by 
a stairway of one hundred and eighty-two steps 
to the dome of the city hall, and am improved 
ad infinitum. To the most subtle reasoning such 
a proof, coupled too, as it is with numberless 
similar cases, demonstrates his power to heal. 
Now for a brief analysis of this power. 

"Is it spiritualism? Listen to the words of 
wisdom. "Believe in God, believe also in me; 
or believe me for the very work's sake/ Now 
then, his works are but the results of superior 
wisdom, which can demonstrate a science not 
understood ; hence it were a doubtful proceeding 
not to believe him for the work's sake. Well, then, 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 39 

he denies that his power to heal the sick is bor- 
rowed from the spirits of this or another world; 
and let us take the Scriptures for proof. 'A 
kingdom divided against itself cannot stand/ 
How, then, can he receive the aid of the dis- 
enthralled spirit, while he rejects the faith of the 
solemn mystic who crosses the threshold of the 
dark unknown to conjure up with the vasty deep 
the awe-struck spirit of some invisible squaw? 

"Again, is it by animal magnetism that he 
heals the sick? Let us examine. I have em- 
ployed electro magnetism and animal magnetism, 
and for a brief interval have felt relief, from the 
equilibrium which I fancied was restored to an 
exhausted system or by a diffusion of concen- 
trated action. But in no instance did I get rid 
of a return of all my ailments, because I had not 
been helped out of the error in which opinions 
involved us. My operator believed in disease, 
independent of the mind; hence I could not be 
wiser than my master. But now I can see dimly 
at first, and only as trees walking, the great prin- 
ciple that underlies Dr. Quimby's faith and 
works; and just in proportion to my right per- 
ception of truth is my recovery. This truth 
which he opposes to the error of giving intelli- 
gence to matter and placing pain where it never 
placed itself, if received understanding^, changes 
the currents of the system to their normal action, 
and the mechanism of the body goes on undis- 
turbed. That this is a science capable of demon- 
stration becomes clear to the minds of those 



40 FACTS AND FABLES 

patients who reason upon the process of their 
cure. The truth which he establishes in the 
patient cures him (although he may be wholly 
unconscious thereof), and the body, which is 
full of light, is no longer in disease. At present 
I am too much in error fo elucidate the truth, 
and can touch only the keynote of the master 
hand to wake the harmony. May it be in essays, 
instead of notes, say I. After all, this is a very 
spiritual doctrine, but the eternal years of God 
are with it, and it must stand firm as the rock of 
ages. And to many a poor sufferer may be 
found, as by me, 'the shadow of a great rock in 
a weary land.' " 

This letter was so extravagant that it provoked 
the ridicule of the Portland Advertiser. She re- 
plied as follows : 

"Noticing a paragraph in the Advertiser, com- 
menting upon some sentences of mine clipped 
from the Courier, relative to the science of P. P. 
Quimby, concluding, 'what next?' we would re- 
ply in due deference to the courtesy with which 
they define their position. P. P. Quimby stands 
upon the plane of wisdom with his truth. Christ 
healed the sick, but not by jugglery or with drugs. 
As the former speaks as never before man spake, 
and heals as never man healed since Christ, is he 
not identified with truth? And is not this the 
Christ which is in him? We know that in wis- 
dom is life, 'and the life was the light of man/ 
P. P. Quimby rolls away the stone from the 
sepulchre of error, and health is the resurrection. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 41 

But we also know that light shineth in darkness 
and the darkness comprehendeth it not.' " 

She expressed her admiration in the following 
verse : 

" 'Mid light of science sits the sage profound, 
Awing with classics and his starry lore, 
Climbing to Venus, chasing Saturn round, 
Turning his mystic pages o'er and o'er. 
Till from empyrean space, his wearied sight 
Turns to the oasis on which to gaze, 
More bright than glitters on the brow of night, 
The self-taught man walking in wisdom's ways. 
Then paused the captive gaze with peace en- 
twined, 
And sight was satisfied with thee to dwell; 
But not in classics could the bookworm find 
That law of excellence when came the spell 
Potent o'er all— the captive to unbind, 
To heal the sick and faint, the halt and blind." 

Mrs. Eddy's letters (then Mrs. Patterson) to 
her healer and teacher are in the possession of 
George A. Quimby. An extract given in the Mc- 
Clure history gives her continued reverence for 
her healer : 

"Sanborton Bridge, Jan. 12, 1863. 

"I am to all who see me a living wonder, and 
a living monument of your power — I eat, drink, 
and am merry, have no laws to fetter my spirit. 
Am as much an escaped prisoner as my dear hus- 
band was. My explanation of your curative 
principle surprises people, especially those whose 
minds are all matter. I mean not again to look 



42 FACTS AND FABLES 

mournfully into the past, but wisely to improve 
the present.' ' 

During 1863 she frequently wrote for absent 
treatment, referring to such treatment as his 
"omnipresence" and "angel visits." She was 
always extravagant in her choice of words. This 
extravagance, or overmeaning of her words, ap- 
pear in later years to have become literal to her, 
or, if not, she was the arch simulator in all litera- 
ture. If she took her own words seriously, then 
it is a case for the neurologist to deal with. 

"In the early part of 1864 Mrs. Patterson 
again spent two or three months in Portland. 
She continued interruptedly her studies. She 
found congenial companions in one Sarah Crosby, 
who was likewise a patient of Quimby, and Miss 
Anna Mary Jarvis, who had brought her con- 
sumptive sister to Quimby for treatment. Mrs. 
Crosby and Mrs. Patterson became warm friends. 
They occupied adjoining rooms in the same 
boarding house and spent much time together. 
Mrs. Patterson told Mrs. Crosby that she in- 
tended to assist Mr. Quimby in his work. The 
latter, says Mrs. Crosby, frequently expressed 
his pleasure at Mrs. Patterson's enthusiasm. 'He 
told me many times/ she adds, 'that I was not so 
quick to perceive the truth as Mrs. Patterson/ 
Quimby now gave Mrs. Patterson much of his 
time. He was practicing then mainly in the 
morning, and allowed Mrs. Patterson to spend 
nearly every afternoon in his office. 'She would 
work with Dr. Quimby all afternoon/ says Mrs. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 43 

Crosby, 'and then she would come home and sit 
up late at night writing down what she had 
learned during the day/ " l 

It is thus seen that she had a new purpose in 
her life and diligently pursued its leading. She 
attempted upon a few patients the method of 
healing taught by Ouimby. Instead of being effi- 
cient as a healer herself she constantly kept call- 
ing for absent treatment from him. In a letter 
from Warren dated April 24th, 1864, she says: 

"Jesus taught as man does not, who then is 
wise but you? Posted at the public marts of the 
city is this notice: Mrs. M. M. Patterson will 
lecture at the town hall on P. P. Quimby's Spirit- 
ual Science healing disease, as opposed to Deism 
or Rochester Rapping Spiritualism." 

Mrs. Eddy (Patterson) paid a visit to Mrs. 
Crosby, a fellow patient, in May, 1864, which 
lasted for several months. She was in need of 
a vocation as she had no means of support except 
such as was given her by her sister and others. 

Spiritualism was under discussion everywhere 
at that time in New England. Mrs. Patterson 
(Eddy) acted as the "medium" through which 
her brother, Albert, deceased, was supposed to 
communicate. The McClure history gives at 
length Mrs. Crosby's account of these "sittings." 
In later years she wished this part of her history 
"expunged." So we have in her second edition 
of "Science and Health," 1878, page 166, this 
denial : 

iMcClure's, 1907, p. 349. 



44 FACTS AND FABLES 

"We are aware that the Spiritualists claim 
whosoever they would catch and regard Christ 
as an elder brother. But we never were a Spirit- 
ualist; and never were, and never could be, and 
never admitted we were a medium." 

The first student to whom she taught the 
Quimby system of healing was Hiram Crafts, 
who was a spiritualist. This was in the winter 
of 1866-1867, after the death of P. P. Quimby. 
After leaving the Crafts home, because she tried 
to get Mr. Crafts to leave his wife and practice 
healing with her, she went to Amesbury, a total 
stranger, and presented herself to Mrs. Mary 
Esther Carter, a well known spiritualist. She 
said she was a spiritualist of advanced views, and 
had been led to Amesbury by a vision, and in her 
vision had seen the house which was to shelter 
her. The ruse in this case did not work as well 
as in the next, the case of Mrs. Nathaniel Web- 
ster. 

The following extract is from a sworn state- 
ment by Mary Ellis Bartlett, granddaughter of 
Mrs. Webster: 

"One night in the autumn of 1867, as nearly 
as I can fix the date, a woman, a stranger, came 
to my grandmother's door, and told her that she 
had been led by the spirits to come to her house, 
for the reason that it was 'a nice harmonious 
home/ My grandmother, who was sympathetic 
and hospitable, and, above all, a devoted spirit- 
ualist, who would never turn another spiritualist 
away, upon hearing this, exclaimed, 'Glory to 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 45 

God, come right in !' The woman, thus admitted, 
told my grandmother that she was Mrs. Mary 
Glover, a spiritualist, and that she had been 
drawn as above described to my grandmother's 
house. Mrs. Glover did not explain further why 
she came or from what place she had come. My 
grandmother gave her the use of the bedroom 
over the spiritual room. Here grandmother and 
Mrs. Glover continued to hold spiritualistic 
seances, in which Mrs. Glover took an active part, 
passing into the trance state and giving what 
grandmother believed to be communications from 
the spirits/' 1 

This affidavit states that Mrs. Glover (Eddy) 
talked Quimby's science and was writing what 
she called a revision of the Bible. She said she 
had learned the science, which was in advance of 
spiritualism, from P. P. Quimby, of Portland, 
Maine. And that she had brought copies of his 
manuscripts with her. 

She lived in the Webster home for some 
months, until she had worn out her welcome, 
which she always seemed to do, and finally, on 
refusing to go, had her trunk put into the street 
and the door locked, shutting her out. 

There are two points of value that this spiritual- 
istic part of her history brings out. The first is 
that she did not seem to take spiritualism very 
seriously, but used it upon impressionable 
spiritualists to gain their hospitality, which she 
needed while preparing herself for a vocation. 

iMcClure's, 1907. 



46 FACTS AND FABLES 

The second is the usual contradiction between her 
early history and her later words in attempting to 
expunge the facts. 

To return to her estimate of P. P. Quimby: 
He died January 16, 1866, at his residence in Bel- 
fast, where he had retired from a practice that 
was breaking him down. Here he expected to 
prepare his manuscripts for publication. These 
manuscripts were never published in full and are 
now in possession of his son. 

Few felt his loss more than did Mrs. Patterson 
(Eddy). Among his ardent students was Julius 
Dresser, father of Horatio W. Dresser, from 
whose able works I give quotations. Two weeks 
after Quimby's death Mrs. Patterson (Eddy) 
wrote to Julius Dresser urging him to carry on 
Quimby's work as the one best fitted to do so. In 
this letter she tells of having fallen on the side- 
walk and injuring her back, and said that she at 
first feared that she was the helpless cripple that 
she was before she saw Quimby. After two days 
she demonstrated over her own case sufficiently 
to get up and walk, but felt frightened and im- 
plored his help to keep her from dropping back 
into her former invalidism. Her fertile imagery 
in later years turned this incident into a miracle, 
which her followers hold up as one of the greatest 
demonstrations since the days of Christ. This 
will be adverted to later. 

The following poem was written by Mrs. Pat- 
terson (Eddy) and published in a Lynn news- 
paper a few days after Quimby's death : 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 47 

"Did sackcloth clothe the sun, and day grow night, 
All matter mourn the hour with dewy eyes, 
When Truth, receding from our mortal sight, 
Had paid to error her last sacrifice ? 

Can we forget the power that gave us life? 
Shall we forget the wisdom of its way? 
Then ask me not amid this mortal strife — 
This keenest pang of animated clay — 

To mourn him less; to mourn him more were just 
If to his memory 'twere a tribute given 
For every solemn, sacred, earnest trust 
Delivered to us ere he rose to heaven. 

Heaven but the happiness of that calm soul, 
Growing in stature to the throne of God ; 
Rest should reward him who has made us whole, 
Seeking, though tremblers, where his footsteps 
trod." 
Mrs. Eddy had in her possession copies from 
some of Ouimby's manuscripts. These she con- 
sidered to be of great value. For the first time 
in her life she possessed that which had in it a 
commercial value, and within a year after her 
teacher's death she began to turn it to commercial 
account. Her first student was Hiram S« Crafts, 
a shoemaker of East Stoughton. She took up 
her residence at his home in the early part of 
1867. She gave him instructions in the Quimby 
method and induced him to open an office, which 
he did in Taunton. Mrs. Eddy lived with the 



48 FACTS AND FABLES 

Crafts for several months, instructing him but 
attempting no healing herself. He did not con- 
tinue to practice long, because she made trouble 
in the household and urged him to get a divorce 
from his wife, which he refused to do. 

Many years after this, when she had become 
famous and retired to Concord, she sent for Mr. 
Crafts and had him deliver into her hands the 
manuscript she had used in teaching him. Such 
a manuscript could have been of no other value 
to her than to cover the trail of the past, to "ex- 
punge" an inconvenient part of material history 
that bore unfavorably upon the question of her 
"discovery" and "divine inspiration." 

After her unfortunate experience at the home 
of Mrs. Webster she received the hospitality of 
Miss Sarah Bagley, a dressmaker, who also was 
a spiritualist. 

She taught Miss Bagley the healing system. 
She next went to live at the home of Mrs. Went- 
worth, a nurse and spiritualist. She taught her 
the Ouimby system, charging $300 for the in- 
struction, which sum was to cover her board and 
lodging for a considerable time. She lived with 
the Wentworth's two years. As usual she caused 
dissention in the home by trying to persuade Mrs. 
Wentworth to leave her family and go away with 
her. Here again, after so long a time, she was 
ordered to leave. She did not do so without leav- 
ing evidence of a revengeful spirit. 

The Wentworths vvere away from home when 
she left. On returning they found the door to 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 49 

her room locked. Finally, on forcing the lock, 
they found the matting on the floor all cut up and 
the feather bed cut to pieces. In the closet a pile 
of newspapers were half consumed, a shovel of 
dead coals lying on top. The door of the closet 
being shut and the pile of papers being too closely 
packed, were evidently what saved the house from 
being burned down. 

Mrs. Wentworth copied the Quimby manu- 
script which belonged to Mrs. Glover (Eddy)V 
She was enjoined never to leave the manuscript 
for a moment without locking the desk, so jealous 
was she of her possession. It was not her re- 
ligion — it was her means of support. During this 
time, 1868 to 1870, she made no claims for any 
originality, but always gave it out that her teach- 
ings were Ouimby's science. Horace T. Went- 
worth has his mofher's manuscript today. Four 
members of the Wentworth family testify under 
affidavit that this is the manuscript that Mrs. 
Wentworth received from Mrs. Glover (Eddy). 
The evidence sustaining the facts that Mrs. Glover 
Eddy sold copies of the Quimby manuscripts, and 
claimed them to be such, is very ample and con- 
clusive. 

It is well to recall that the time at which she 
later fixed the date of her divine revelation was 
1866. She says in "Retrospection and Intro- 
spection": "I then withdrew from society about 
three years to ponder my mission, to search the 
Scriptures, to find the Science of Mind, that 
should take the things of God and show them to 



50 FACTS AND FABLES 

the creature, and reveal the great Curative Prin- 
ciple — Deity." 

During these years between 1866 and 1875, 
when her first edition of Science and Health ap- 
peared, she was constantly writing and search- 
ing for some one to whom to teach healing. As 
her education was very limited, and logic had 
little part in her mental makeup, she grappled 
with material far beyond her capacity to under- 
stand or safely handle. She exhibited an ad- 
mirable continuity of purpose and perseverance. 
While it was, no doubt, her sole hope of support, 
she could claim distinction and peculiar attention, 
for few had possession of her system. 

Vanity and imperiousness were elements in her 
nature that expressed themselves throughout her 
whole life. She wished for power, financial gain, 
and distinction, and finally gained them all 
through her perseverance and shrewdness in being 
equal to every trying condition. 

Her followers today look back at the turbu- 
lent period we have just covered as her retire- 
ment into the wilderness for purification. It was 
a season, instead, of quarreling and intrigue, in 
which she made no pretense or claims to those 
among whom she went of being led by God. Let 
us follow her struggles with her unfortunate 
characteristics and prosaic surroundings and see 
if we can find the hand of the God or of Jesus 
directing her steps. 



CHAPTER III. 

MRS. EDDY TRAINS HER FIRST SUCCESSFUL 

HEALER, AND PUBLISHES SCIENCE 

AND HEALTH. 

In 1870, four years after Quimby's death, she 
succeeded in training her first successful student. 
In Richard Kennedy, a young man of only 
twenty, she found her real support. He entered 
into an agreement to remain with her three years ; 
he to practice healing, while she taught classes. 
He was successful from the start and for the 
first time in her life Mrs. Eddy was free from 
pecuniary embarrassments. This did not make 
her relax, for her ambition had in it the mettle 
that keeps going. 

While Kennedy did the healing, Mrs. Glover 
(Eddy) taught classes — mostly recruited from 
those who were healed. Her students were re- 
quired to make copies of the Quimby manuscripts, 
which she called the "Science of Man." They 
were put under a formal three thousand dollar 
bond not to show it. The members of her first 
classes in Lynn paid her one hundred dollars for 
twelve lessons. She also was to receive ten per 
cent annually on the income from their practice. 
She even bound them with an agreement to pay 
her one thousand dollars in case they did not prac- 
tise or teach. 

51 



52 FACTS AND FABLES 

She brought suit against one of her earliest 
students in Lynn, Charles S. Stanley, for non- 
payment of tuition fees after having dismissed 
him from her class, because he was a Baptist and 
would not believe her statements that she could 
live without eating, and other similar claims. In 
this case Richard Kennedy testified that "So long 
as they believed in a personal God and the re- 
sponse to prayer, they could not progress in the 
scientific religion. I never entirely gave up my 
belief in a personal God, though my belief was 
pretty well shaken up." 

In a short time after she began teaching in 
Lynn she raised the tuition fee for twelve lessons 
from one hundred to three hundred dollars. 
When, later, she was criticised for charging such 
a high fee, she replied as follows : 

"When God impelled me to set a price on my 
instruction in Christian Science Mind-healing, I 
could think of no financial equivalent for an im- 
partation of a knowledge of that divine power 
which heals; but I was led to name three hun- 
dred dollars as the price for each pupil in one 
course of lessons at my college, — a startling sum 
for tuition lasting barely three weeks. This 
amount greatly troubled me. I shrank from ask- 
ing it, but was finally led, by a strange providence, 
to accept this fee. 

"God has since shown me in multitudinous 
ways the wisdom of this decision ; and I beg dis- 
interested people to ask my loyal students if they 
consider three hundred dollars any real equiva- 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 53 

lent for my instruction during twelve half days, 
or even in half as many lessons." * 

It will be shown that what she was teaching at 
this time is later claimed to be her divine revela- 
tion — the Messiah come again. 

Mrs. Glover's classes grew larger and so did 
Richard Kennedy's practise. He remonstrated 
with her for making such sweeping claims as she 
apparently was accustomed to doing. One of her 
students, W. W. Wright, who practised healing 
according to her teachings, said that it was the 
same as mesmerism. He challenged her to 
demonstrate the following extravagances which 
she claimed she could do : "To restore the dead to 
life," "To walk upon the water," "To live twenty- 
four hours without air," "To restore sight when 
the optic nerve has been destroyed," "To set and 
heal a broken bone without the aid of artificial 
means." 

She always had a convenient way to escape 
when she was cornered, and seems never to have 
cared how ridiculous the means of escape, just 
so she got away with the cash or kept her deluded 
followers intact. In her suit against Stanley, 
when confronted with her statements, she said 
that "she had seen the dead in understanding 
awakened through her science." This explana- 
tion was not made to her class, but brought out 
by the court. She used the stronger expression to 
awe and catch students. 

In the spring of 1872 Richard Kennedy wearied 

1 Retrospection and Introspection, p. 61. 



54 FACTS AND FABLES 

of her tyranny and broke off their partnership. 
He had paid their living expenses and gave Mrs. 
Glover half of what was left from his practice, 
which amounted to six thousand dollars in money. 
She did not share the proceeds of her classes with 
him. This incident in her history is one of the 
most important of all her turbulent scenes, as it 
has much to do with the inception and growth 
of the Christian Science Devil. Kennedy will 
come upon the stage in subsequent acts. After 
this separation Kennedy took another office in 
Lynn and continued his practice. 

It is important to keep the dates clear in our 
minds, as these years of storm and intrigue were 
the ones which in later years are surrounded with 
spiritual mystery and divine guidance. It must 
be remembered that tens of thousands of Chris- 
tian Scientists today stand in worshipful awe 
of this personality, and take her patent medicine 
advertisements as seriously as the Sermon on the 
Mount. 

In Mrs. Eddy's words already given she said 
that she never was a spiritualist medium. An 
affidavit, by Mrs. Richard Hazeltine, in McClure's 
hands, throws a vivid light on the science and 
kind of inspiration she was receiving while writ- 
ing "Science and Health." 

Many mediums select as a control or "guide" 
an Indian or some prominent personage deceased. 
As usual with Mrs. Eddy, the best was none too 
good, so she had as her "controls" Jesus Christ 
and His Apostles. She explained to the circle 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 55 

with which she frequently met in 1871 and 1872 
in Lynn that owing to her spiritual superiority 
and purity of life she could only be "controlled" 
by one of the Apostles and Jesus Christ. "Science 
and Health" contains a chapter of twenty-nine 
pages called "Christian Science and Spiritualism." 
I would recommend it to you to see what you 
can make of it. 

In her class room she always exercised over her 
students a powerful influence. She exacted com- 
plete submission and surrender of will. This left 
the mind impressionable to the most extreme and 
most contradictory doctrines. If she was sin- 
cere in her mediumistic role, then she brought in- 
to her work the peculiar influence of the mystic. 
If she was not sincere, she was a gigantic fraud 
in her simulations and, as an actress, still exer- 
cised the influence of the mystic. 

Into the Quimby manuscripts which formed the 
basis of her lectures, she kept steadily injecting 
her own ideas and interpretations. In 1870 she 
took out a copyright on a book entitled "The 
Science of Man, by Which the Sick are Healed. 
Embracing Questions and Answers in Moral 
Science. Arranged for the Learner by Mrs. Mary 
Baker Glover." This pamphlet was not published 
until 1876. Her first edition of "Science and 
Health" was published in 1875. In it she lost 
Quimby and raised herself. Since Christian 
Science is largely a doctrine of denial, we will 
later find her strenuously applying this doctrine 



56 FACTS AND FABLES 

to her former relations and estimates of P. P. 
Quimby. 

In the spring of 1875 there entered Mrs. 
Glover's class, in the person of Daniel Harrison 
Spofford, a man like Kennedy, who was destined 
to play an important part in shaping the character 
of the "Key to the Scriptures , \ So great a favor- 
ite was he that she gave to him the gold pen with 
which "Science and Health" was written. 

The first radical change in her teachings came 
about through the rupture between herself and 
Kennedy. Quimby had taught the manipulation 
of the head, by wetting the hands and rubbing 
the head ; not that the manipulation had in it any 
distinct virtue, but it gave to the patient the feel- 
ing of something tangible being done. Up until 
this time Mrs. Glover taught such manipulations. 
The paragraph following will serve the dual pur- 
pose of showing what she taught on the point, 
and the character of her literary style before she 
came to employ a literary critic to rewrite her sen- 
tences. She said : 

"That is, do not be discouraged, but hold calmly 
and persistently on to science that tells you you 
are right and they are in error (and wetting your 
hand in water, rise and rub their head, this rub- 
bing has no virtue only as we believe and others 
believe we get nearer to them by contact, and now 
you would rub out a belief and this belief is lo- 
cated in the brain, therefore as an M. D. lays a 
poultice where the pain is, so you lay your hands 
where the belief is to rub it forever out) do not 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 57 

address your thoughts for a moment to their body 
as you mentally argue down their beliefs (and 
rub their heads) but take yourself, the Soul, to 
destroy the error of life, sensation and substance 
in matter to your own belief, as much as in you 
lies, etc." 

Now since Kennedy continued to treat by the 
Quimby method, and she wished to discredit him 
and ruin his business, she repudiated the method 
of manipulation and denounced it in no uncertain 
terms. She said in the first edition of "Science 
and Health" : 

"Sooner suffer a doctor infected with small pox 
to be about you than come under the treatment of 
one who manipulates his patients' heads, and is 
a traitor to Science." * 

"There is but one possible way of doing wrong 
with a mental method of healing, and this is mes- 
merism, whereby the minds of the sick may be 

controlled by error instead of Truth 

For years we had tested the benefits of Truth on 
the body, and knew no opposite chance of doing 
evil through a mental method of healing until we 
saw it traduced by an erring student, and made 
the medium of error. Introducing falsehood in- 
to the minds of the patients prevented their re- 
covery, and the sins of the doctor was visited on 
the patients, many of whom died because of 
this ***♦»> 

This was the beginning of what grew into the 

i First Edition of S. & H v p. 193. 
2 First Edition of S. & H v . p. 371. 



58 FACTS AND FABLES 

dark object that pursued her all the rest of her 
life. It was at first called "mesmerism" by her 
and her students, and later came to take the name 
of "malicious animal magnetism," and for brev- 
ity, since it was used so often, as M. A. M. 

Though she repudiated the practise of manipu- 
lation to discredit Kennedy, she saw in it an ad- 
vancement even over Quimby. From this time on 
she began to persuade herself that Quimby had 
been of little or no value to her. So that when 
her first edition of "Science and Health" came out 
there was made but slightest reference to him. 

Mrs. Eddy was always an opportunist, using to 
the best advantage the tools that came within her 
reach. Thus it was that with her financial success 
through Kennedy and her classes, and with a 
number of enthusiastic students about her, that 
she discovered that the time had come when 
"human history needs to be revised, and the ma- 
terial record expunged." 

She wished to put out the bright light of 
Quimby, which in the past had served her so well, 
and point all eyes toward a halo about herself. 
Her methods were decisive and radical. She be- 
lieved in annihilation by the sharpest thrusts, — in 
poisoning the mind with prejudice and fear. As 
"mesmerism" was in that day to so many some- 
thing to be shunned, she used this method against 
Quimby by referring to him as a "mesmerist" 
and "magnetic doctor." She said "he treated us 
magnetically — his healing was never considered or 
called anything but mesmerism." 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 59 

In the 1884 edition of "Science and Health" 
are to be found these words : 

"The old gentleman to whom we have referred 
had some very advanced views on healing, but he 
was not avowedly religious neither scholarly. We 
interchanged thoughts on the subject of healing 
the sick. I restored some patients of his that he 
failed to heal, and left in his possession some 
manuscripts of mine containing corrections of his 
desultory pennings which I am informed at his 
decease, passed into the hands of a patient of his, 
now residing in Scotland. He died in 1865 and 
left no published works. The only manuscript 
that we ever held of his, longer than to correct it, 
was one of perhaps a dozen pages, most of which 
we had composed." 

She began to put herself in Quimby's place by 
appending a preface signed Mary M. Glover, to 
Quimby's manuscript, "Questions and Answers." 
She made slight changes and additions to the text. 
This was done in 1870, four years after Quimby's 
death. The next step in the evolution of her 
usurpation was to run the preface and text to- 
gether, dropping Quimby entirely and giving it 
all out as her own. When the first edition of 
"Science and Health" was published in 1875 there 
only occurred a slight reference to Quimby. 

When she openly referred to Quimby as a 
"mesmerist," Julius A. Dresser resented the 
charge. This brought out a controversy in which 
Mrs. Eddy proves true to her doctrine of denial. 



60 FACTS AND FABLES 

She replied to Dresser's letter with the following 
letter in the Boston Post, March 7, 1883 : 

"We never were a student of Dr. Quimby's. 
Dr. Quimby never had students to our knowledge. 
He was a Humanitarian, but a very unlearned 
man. He never published a work in his life; was 
not a lecturer or teacher. He was somewhat of 
a remarkable healer, and at the time we knew him 
he was known as a mesmerist. We were one of 
his patients. He manipulated his patients, but 
possibly back of his practise he may have had a 
theory in advance of his method — We knew him 
about twenty years ago and aimed to help him. 
We saw he was looking in our direction and asked 
him to write his thoughts out. He did so and 
then we would take that copy to correct and some- 
times so transform it that he would say that it 
was our composition, which it virtually was ; but 
we always gave him back the copy and sometimes 
wrote his name on the back of it." 

In the Christian Science Journal, for June, 
1887, Mrs. Eddy said: 

"I never heard him intimate that he healed dis- 
ease mentally; and many others will testify that 
up to his last sickness he treated us magnetically, 
manipulating our heads and making passes in the 
air while he stood in front of us. During his 
treatments I felt like one having hold of an elec- 
tric battery and standing on an insulated stool. 
His healing was never considered or called any- 
thing but mesmerism/' 

In "Miscellaneous Writings" she gives this 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 61 

strange account: "About the year 1862 while the 
author of this work was at Dr. Vail's Hydro- 
pathic Institute in New Hampshire, this occurred : 
A patient considered incurable left that institu- 
tion, and in a few weeks returned apparently 
well, having been healed as he informed the pa- 
tients, by one Mr. P. P. Quimby, of Portland, 
Maine. 

"After much consultation among ourselves, 
and a struggle with pride, the author, in com- 
pany with several other patients, left the Water 
Cure en route for the aforesaid doctor in Port- 
land. He proved to be a magnetic practitioner. 
His treatment seemed at first to relieve her but 
signally failed in healing her case. 

"Having practiced Homeopathy, it never oc- 
curred to the author to learn his practice, but she 
did ask him how manipulation could benefit the 
sick. He answered kindly and squarely, in sub- 
stance, 'Because it conveys electricity to them.' 
That was the sum of what he taught her of his 
medical profession." 

Now contrast the above with the letter pub- 
lished on November 7, 1862, in the Portland 
Courier by Mrs. Eddy. (See page 37.) Also 
with her article in the Advertiser. ( See page 40. ) 

Did the God of the New Testament inspire both 
these versions ? 

In 1877 Mrs. Eddy sent for Mrs. Crosby, who 
was a stenographer and former patient of 
Quimby, to report a course of lessons to a class 



62 FACTS AND FABLES 

of nine pupils, She testifies under affidavit that 
these lessons were practically the same that she 
had herself been taught by Quimby. The inter- 
esting part is that in 1883 Mrs. Eddy sent her at- 
torney to sound Mrs. Crosby upon her impres- 
sions of her work with Quimby. She was not 
communicative upon the matter, which brought 
a letter from Mrs. Eddy imploring her aid: 
"Now, my dear, I want you to tell this man, the 
bearer of this note, that you know that Mr. 
Quimby and I were friends and that I used to take 
his scribblings and fix them over for him and give 
him my thoughts and language which, as I under- 
stood it, were far in advance of his. 

"Will you do this and give an affidavit to this 
effect and greatly oblige your affectionate sister, 

"Mary." 

The Boston Post of March 7, 1883, contains 
this statement from Mrs. Eddy : 

"Did I write these articles purporting to be 
mine? I might have written them twenty or 
thirty years ago, for I was under the mesmeric 
treatment of Dr. Quimby from 1862 until his 
death, 1865. He was illiterate and I knew noth- 
ing then of the Science of Mind Healing, and I 
was as ignorant of mesmerism as Eve before she 
was taught by the serpent. Mind Science was un- 
known to me; and my head was so turned by 
animal magnetism and will power under his treat- 
ment that I might have written something as 
hopelessly incorrect as the articles now published 
in the Dresser pamphlet. I was not healed until 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 63 

after the death of Mr. Quimby ; and then healing 
came as the result of my discovery in 1866 of 
the Science of Mind Healing, since named Chris- 
tian Science. ,, 

In 1885 Mrs. Eddy employed Rev. James 
Henry Wiggin, a Unitarian minister and literary 
critic, to revise "Science and Health/' which had 
then been through several editions. He spent 
seven years in this capacity. She had previously 
had very indifferent help, with the result that the 
editions of the book, previous to its rewriting by 
Rev. Wiggin, are wanting in literary merit, and 
full of absurdities and contradictions. Mrs. Eddy 
was entirely wanting in literary ability. She 
could not express herself in ordinarily good Eng- 
lish, and was so ignorant of history and philos- 
ophy as to constantly make herself ridiculous 
whenever she attempted to pose as a scholar. 

Rev. Wiggin was a man of high literary attain- 
ments. The literary merit in the book "Science 
and Health'' belongs to him, and to other literary 
critics since his last revision in 1891. He also 
edited "Miscellaneous Writings," "Retrospection 
and Introspection," "Unity of God," "No and 
Yes," and, as he said, "doctored her poems as 
well." 

Mrs. Eddy was always willing to take to her- 
self the literary merit contained in her books, 
which does not belong to her at all. This false- 
hood was buried with her, thus being maintained 
to her death, since a copy of every book bearing 
her name was buried with her in the midst of tons 



64 FACTS AND FABLES 

of masonry. But this is only in keeping with the 
whole life of this leader whom many Christian 
Scientists declare is the "feminine principle of 
God." 

She says in her autobiography, "Retrospection 
and Introspectioll ,, : 

"My favorite studies were natural philosophy, 
logic and Moral Science. To my brother Albert 
I was indebted for lessons in the ancient tongues. 
After my discovery of Christian Science most of 
the knowledge I had gleaned from school books 
vanished like a dream." 

She did not know the meaning of the word 
"physiology," for the editions before Rev. Wig- 
gin's revision show how she confused the word 
with physics. She did not know the difference 
between the words gnostic and agnostic — though 
she says that her "favorite studies were philos- 
ophy, logic and Moral Science." So successful 
has Mrs. Eddy been in parading herself before 
her people as a woman of education and learning 
that a "scientist" said to me that "Science and 
Health" is used as a text book in Yale University. 

Rev. Wiggin left at his death a written state- 
ment in the possession of Livingston Wright 
which is illuminating. I will give some para- 
graphs from it. 

Mrs. Eddy brought to Rev. Wiggin the manu- 
script for him to revise, remarking that there 
were "doubtless a few things here and there that 
would require the assistance of a fresh hand." 

He says : " 'I was intending to go up to the 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 65 

mountains with my wife on a few days' vacation, 
and I put the package away in my satchel, think- 
ing that when I got up in the hills I would set 
about the revision, which I supposed could be com- 
pleted in a reasonably short time. 

" 'Some days later I opened the package and be- 
gan a scrutiny of the manuscript. Well, I was 
staggered! Of all the dissertations a literary 
helper ever inspected, I do not believe one ever 
saw a treatise to surpass this. The misspelling, 
capitalization and punctuation were dreadful, but 
those things were not the things that feazed me. 
It was the thought and the general elemental ar- 
rangement of the work. There were passages 
that flatly and absolutely contradicted things that 
had preceded, and scattered all through were in- 
correct references to historical and philosophical 
matters. The thing that troubled me was : How 
could I attempt to dress up this manuscript by 
dealing only with the spelling and punctuation? 
There would be left a mass of material that would 
reflect on me as a professional aid were my name 
to be associated in any way with the enterprise : 
I saw, in a word, that the only way in which I 
could undertake the requested revision would be 
to begin absolutely at the first page and rewrite 
the whole thing. I tossed the package back into 
the satchel and did nothing more until I returned 
to Boston.' " 

The next interview with Mrs. Eddy resulted 
in an understanding whereby he was to rewrite 
the whole thing. He says : 



66 FACTS AND FABLES 

" 'Well, a clear understanding having been 
reached regarding the way in which I was to do 
my revising, I set to work on that manuscript. 
And I did work. I assure you that I often think 
now as I read the ridicule of the critics concern- 
ing Mrs. Eddy's literary style that I wish they 
could have a peep at that manuscript that I was 
at work on in the autumn of 1885 ! I think they 
would have had something to rave over. 

" 'In speaking of my labors on Mrs. Eddy's 
books, I might make the general observation that 
my most important mission, as I regard it, was 
above all, to accomplish two things : keep her 
from making herself absolutely ridiculous and, 
secondly, to keep her from flatly contradicting 
herself. To gather an adequate conception of 
the problem that I undertook in revising that 
manuscript, one should have poured over the mass 
of verbiage with me, day by day and page by 
page. The evidence of lack of education and of 
ignorance concerning the writings and teachings 
of the famous philosophers was so overwhelming 
that I could not trust her references, but had to 
look up everything for myself to be sure and to 
feel that I was doing work that was commend- 
able to my own standard and just to her while I 
remained her literary aid and counsel. 

" 'It has been many times claimed for Mrs. 
Eddy, and she has claimed it herself, that she 
knew something of the ancient languages and 
literature. I can positively assure you that Mrs. 
Eddy knew nothing whatever of the ancient Ian- 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 67 

guages. She could not translate a page of Latin, 
Greek, Sanscrit, or give a synopsis of the teach- 
ings of the great philosophers of the ancients 
were it to have saved her life. She was in utter 
ignorance of those matters, and as for her knowl- 
edge of, and ability to write, the English tongue, 
I think I have sufficiently indicated that at the 
beginning of my statement in regard to the manu- 
script. 

" Thus it was that I tried to examine every 
sentence and to cut out wherever she would per- 
mit it, for, understand, there were many occasions 
when she insisted upon using her particular words 
or expressions, even though I had positively as- 
sured her that they had best be changed or taken 
from the context ; so, of course, in they went. I 
hunted up texts and mottoes with which to head 
the various chapters and adorn or illustrate the 
reading matter. All of this w r as a bagatelle, how- 
ever, compared to the maddening task of straight- 
ening out her w T eird English and bolstering up her 
lack of learning, to use the mildest term. For in- 
stance, there was a section to go to the chapter 
headed 'Healing and Teaching/ and which will 
be found on page 360 of this copy of the six- 
teenth edition, 1886, which is the edition that 
was made from this manuscript that I was revis- 
ing. Barring the question of whatever sense or 
saneness this so-called 'allegory' does have or does 
not have, that draft that I had seemed a hopeless 
commingling of efforts to gather legal terms and 
phrases and with no other result than a hodge- 



68 FACTS AND FABLES 

podge of law terms indiscriminately used. I 
worked and worked over this and finally got it 
in the shape you will find it in the sixteenth edi- 
tion/ m 

The reader will see why Mrs. Eddy at great ex- 
pense bought up, borrowed and never returned all 
the copies of "Science and Health" that could be 
gotten of the editions before Rev. Wiggin's revi- 
sion. A few are yet extant and are not only 
monuments of her "learning/' but monuments 
that she wished to "expunge", to purify w r ith fire. 

Mr. Livingston Wright says : 

"Among the material that the late Rev. Wiggin 
turned over to the writer are the copies of 
'Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures/ 
of different editions and which are marked and 
crossed and annotated with the hand of the re- 
viser in preparing for succeeding editions." 

Rev. Wiggin persuaded Mrs. Eddy to leave 
out ten pages of matter that was an attack on sev- 
eral of her earlier students, whom she charged 
with the death of her husband, Asa G. Eddy. It 
was necessary to fill this space, so he put in a 
chapter called "Wayside Hints," which was a 
sermon that he had written for Mrs. Eddy and 
she had delivered it as her own. So well satis- 
fied was she with this that she said : "Mr. Wig- 
gin, I often feel as if the Lord spoke to me 
through you." 

The chapter, "Wayside Hints," ran through 

iHow Rev. Wiggin Rewrote Mrs. Eddy's Book, by Liv- 
ingston Wright. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 69 

many editions of "Science and Health," and by 
Rev. Wiggin was commonly referred to as "my 
chapter \ The controversy going on at that time 
over the origin of "Science and Health," and Rev. 
Wiggin's refusal to have any part in Mrs. Eddy's 
falsehoods about it, aroused her caution. So one 
day she asked him whose chapter he considered 
"Wayside Hints" to be. He replied that it was 
entirely his own. "Wayside Hints" was left out 
of succeeding editions. It was acceptable as part 
of the "revelation" so long as the world did not 
know the source from whence it came. If he 
had good naturedly replied, "I consider it our 
chapter, the words being mine, but the inspira- 
tion from God coming through you, his appointed 
oracle," the book "Science and Health" would to- 
day no doubt have in it one oasis in its vast desert 
of shifting sand. Rev. Wiggin says : 

"Now it must be understood that throughout 
these editions that I revised for Mrs. Eddy, the 
mention of certain words being derived or prob- 
ably derived from certain Latin or Greek words, 
is a matter due entirely to myself, for, as I have 
said, Mrs. Eddy had no familiarity whatever with 
the classics or classical tongues. The same is true 
in regard to most of the references to the philoso- 
phers and learned authorities. I am the one who 
worked them into the text. 

"I planed off a good many of her 'poems', and 
if they lack, after going through my hands, some- 
thing in measure and comprehensibility, I surely 
don't know what the literary critics would have 



70 FACTS AND FABLES 

thought of the originals as they came into my 
hands from Mrs. Eddy." 

In speaking of Rev. Wiggin and Mrs. Eddy's 
book, W. S. Nixon, who was publisher of 
"Science and Health" a long time, says : 

"Mr, Wiggin made his last and complete revi- 
sion of 'Science and Health' in 1891. He went 
over the whole business thoroughly in that year. 
I took hold of 'Science and Health' as Mrs. 
Eddy's publisher at the forty-fourth edition in 
1889, and met Wiggin in that year. I remained 
as Mrs. Eddy's publisher until the seventy- fourth 
edition in 1893. I can say that whatever style or 
literary polish is to be found in 'Science and 
Health' is, unquestionably due to Mr. Wiggin, 
for Mrs. Eddy certainly had no education requi- 
site to the writing of a book, even of ordinary 
English." 

Concerning the source of the ideas in Christian 
Science, Rev. Wiggin says: "Whatever Mrs. 
Eddy has, as documents clearly prove, she got 
from P. P. Quimby, of Portland, Maine." 



CHAPTER IV. 

"malicious animal magnetism/' the chris- 
tian SCIENCE DEVIL. 

Unlike Dr. Patterson, who, when he met Mrs. 
Glover, determined that he would marry her in 
spite of her father's cautions, Asa Gilbert Eddy 
did not know anything about it himself twenty- 
four hours before he found himself with a mar- 
riage license in his pocket. He was evidently 
annexed, and being a gentle little man, seems to 
have quite happily submitted. Again quite un- 
like Dr. Patterson, he did not desert the task but 
died in the harness after a strange and turbu- 
lent experience. The marriage took place New 
Years Day, 1877. Mrs. Eddy was fifty-six years 
old, but the age given on the marriage license was 
forty, the same as his. Our material sense must 
not make too much of this, for years and age are 
only illusions of the mortal and material senses, 
and forty would be as convenient a number as 
fifty-six with which to indulge this "error". 

When it is remembered that the basic principle 
of Christian Science is the unreality of sin and 
suffering; that these do not exist at all except in 
"seeming or belief, it might be expected that 
Mrs. Eddy would not have been exempt from 
such annoyances. Instead of this she developed 

71 



72 FACTS AND FABLES 

a hyper-sensitiveness, and complained that, like 
Christ, she was bruised for others' transgressions. 

I expect to show that she was not a woman of 
Christian faith, that she did not believe in prayer, 
and that the evidence at hand shows that she did 
not live as close to God as the average of her fol- 
lowers. It is not agreeable to apply such close 
analysis — and no one regrets the necessity for 
doing so more than I, but her claims and her fol- 
lowers' extravagant beliefs make it a duty. Mod- 
ern psychology, the relation of the mind to the 
health of the body, makes it as necessary to keep 
the beliefs of the race wholesome as it is to be 
scientific in physical sanitation. 

The second basic principle of Christian Science 
is the "Allness of God"; that there is but one 
mind, and no volition or power or initiative out- 
side that one mind ; that it and its ideas are per- 
fect and eternal, sinless and harmonious. 

The period that we are dealing with at this 
point was the year 1877, two years after the first 
edition of "Science and Health" was published, 
a few weeks after her marriage to Asa G. Eddy. 
Mr. Spofford and Mr. Eddy were her two most 
active supports. In a number of letters to Mr. 
Spofford (see McClure's, 1907) her inability to 
apply Odimby's teachings to herself, and her dis- 
tance from the "All-Mind" are apparent. She 
literally ran away from Lynn — "driven," as she 
said, "into the wilderness" to escape the devils 
(errors) that her students were driving out of 
their patients, or out of themselves, which 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 73 

straightway ran into her. If she acknowledged 
a weakness she usually shaped the Scriptures to 
show like weakness in Jesus Christ. She said : 

"He bore their sins on his own person ; that is, 
he felt the suffering their error brought, and 
through this consciousness destroyed error. Had 
the Master utterly conquered the belief of Life 
in matter, he would not have felt their infirmities ; 
he had not yet risen to this final demonstration. ,, * 

Her letters were full of complaint and self- 
pity. The facts will in no wise sustain the fol- 
lowing paragraph from "Science and Health/' 
page 38, edition 1881. 

As years passed by she idealized the most pro- 
saic experiences of the past and made capital of 
them. 

"In years past we suffered greatly for the sick 
when healing them, but even that is all over now, 
and we cannot suffer for them. But when we did 
suffer in belief, our joy was so great in remov- 
ing others' sufferings that we bore ours cheer- 
fully and willingly. This self-sacrificing love has 
never left us, but grows stronger every year 
of our earth life." (S. and H.) 

Trust and confidence were elements that were 
conspicuous for their absence in the real life of 
Mrs. Eddy. Since Kennedy no longer served 
her ends he became to her an arch enemy ; though 
he did nothing but attend strictly to his own busi- 
ness, make friends and gain the confidence of the 
people. 

1 Science and Health, 1875 ed., p. 130. 



74 FACTS AND FABLES 

"Malpractice" and "Malicious Animal Mag- 
netism," which stand today as dark things to be 
shunned, had their rise in Mrs. Eddy's earliest 
students who ceased to continue to serve her. The 
following from "Science and Health," 1881, p. 2, 
shows clearly the kind of weapons she was cap- 
able of using. I will leave it with the reader to 
determine the source of the "revelation" : 

"Some years ago the history of one of our 
young students, as known to us and many others, 
diverged into a dark channel of its own, whereby 
the unwise young man reversed our metaphysical 
method of healing, and subverted his mental 
power, apparently for the purposes of tyranny 
peculiar to the individual. A stolid moral sense, 
great want of spiritual sentiment, restless ambi- 
tion, and envy, embedded in the soil of this stu- 
dent's nature, metaphysics brought up to the sur- 
face, and he refused to give them up, choosing 
darkness rather than light. His motives moved 
in one groove, the desire to subjugate; a despotic 
will choked his humanity. Carefully veiling his 
character, through unsurpassed secretiveness, he 
wore the mask of innocence and youth. But he 
was young only in years; a marvelous plotter, 
dark and designing, he was constantly surprising 
us, and we half shut our eyes to avoid the pain 
of discovery, while we struggled with the gigantic 
evil of his character, but failed to destroy it. 
* * * * ^he second year of his practice, 
when we discovered he was malpracticing, and 
told him so, he avowed his intention to do what- 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 75 

ever he chose with his mental power, spurning a 
Christian life and exulting in the absence of 
moral restraint. The sick clung to him when he 
was doing them no good, and he made friends 
and followers with surprising rapidity, but re- 
tained them only so long as his mesmeric influence 
was kept up and his true character unseen. The 
habit of his misapplication of mental power grew 
on him until it became a secret passion of his to 
produce a state of mind destructive of health, hap- 
piness or morals His mental malprac- 
tice has made him a moral leper that would be 
shunned as the most prolific cause of sickness and 
sin did the sick understand the cause of their re- 
lapses, protracted treatment, the husband the loss 
of his wife, and the mother the death of her 
child, etc." 

The passion which the above displays against 
opposition, later has come to apply to all who 
oppose her sway and doctrines. Its name now is 
what she conjured up in her mind to be Kennedy's 
not Kennedy, Spofford, Arnes, but matter, mortal 
mind, mental healing, even the same kind that 
Quimby and she used, in short anything or any- 
body who is outside her cult. Thus we have a 
personal animosity grown into a doctrine, a devil. 
We shall show that this is the only thing that Mrs. 
Eddy discovered, and no one else lays claims to it. 

She built up an imaginary Kennedy who be- 
came to her the source of all her ailments and mis- 
fortunes. She wrote a chapter on Demonology 
for the special benefit of this and other like de- 



76 FACTS AND FABLES 

mons. The following extracts from the "Science 
and Health" of that date tell the story best, and 
shows the nature of her venom: 

"Among our very first students was the mes- 
merist aforesaid, who has followed the cause of 
metaphysical healing as a hound follows his prey, 
to hunt down every promising student if he can- 
not place them in his track and on his pursuit. 
Never but one of our students was a voluntary 
malpractitioner ; he has made many others. . . . 
This malpractitioner tried his best to break down 
our health before we learned the cause of our suf- 
ferings. It was difficult for us to credit the facts 
of his malice or to admit they lie within the pale 
of mortal thought. 

"The husband of a lady who was a patient of 
this malpractitioner poured out his grief to us 

and said : 'Dr. K has destroyed the happiness 

of my home, ruined my wife, etc. ;' and after that 
he finished with a double crime by destroying the 
health of that wronged husband so that he died. 
We say that he did these things because we have 
as much evidence of it as ever we had of the 
existence of any sin. The symptoms and circum- 
stances of the cases, and the diagnosis of their 
diseases, prove the unmistakable fact. His career 
of crime surpasses anything that minds in general 
can accept at this period. We advised him to 
marry a young lady whose affections he had won, 
but he refused; subsequently she was wedded to 
a nice young man, and then he alienated her affec- 
tions from her husband. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 77 

"The Nero of today, regaling himself through 
a mental method with the tortures of individuals, 
is repeating history, and will fall upon his sword, 
and it shall pierce him through. Let him remem- 
ber this when, in the dark recesses of thought, he 
is robbing, committing adultery, and killing; 
when he is attempting to turn friend away from 
friend, ruthlessly stabbing the quivering heart; 
when he is clipping the thread of life, and giving 
to the grave youth and its rainbow hues; when 
he is turning back the reviving sufferer to her 
bed of pain, clouding her first morning after years 
of night; and the Nemesis of that hour shall point 
to the tyrant's fate, who falls at length upon the 
sword of justice." 

Georgine Milmine in McClure's has done this 
part of the history so well that I wish to give her 
idea of Daniel Spofford's fall from grace : 

"The sign of the mesmerist, however, the 
plague spot which he could not conceal, was 
'Manipulation' — the method which she had taught 
Kennedy and afterward repudiated. 'Sooner suf- 
fer a doctor infected with smallpox to be about 
you/ she cries, 'than come under the treatment* 
of one who manipulates his patients' heads.' And 
again, 'the malpractitioner can depend only on 
manipulation.' From 1872 to 1877 Mrs. Eddy 
counted many victims of Kennedy's mesmeric 
power, but charged no other students with con- 
sciously or maliciously practicing mesmerism. In 
1877, however, an open rupture occurred between 
Mrs. Eddy and Daniel Spofford. Now, Mr. 



78 FACTS AND FABLES 

Spofford was, like Kennedy, a man with a per- 
sonal following, and his secession would mean 
that of his party. Though she never hated Spof- 
ford as bitterly as she hated Kennedy, he was the 
second of her seceding students who was deemed 
important enough to merit the charge of mes- 
merism — a charge which conferred a certain dis- 
tinction, as only those who had stood in high 
places ever incurred it. 

"But in her book published only two years be- 
fore, Mrs. Eddy had clearly and repeatedly stated 
that the mesmerist could 'depend only on manipu- 
lation', and could always be detected thereby. 
Now Mr. Spofford did not manipulate — he had 
been so soundly taught that he would have sooner 
put his hands into the fire. But as 'Science and 
Health' had not yet been definitely announced as 
the revealed word of God, modifications were not 
an inconsistency. Accordingly Mrs. Eddy got 
out a postscript. The second edition, which Mr. 
Spofford had labored upon and helped to prepare, 
was hastily revised and converted into a running 
attack upon him, hurried to press, labeled Vol. 
II., and sent panting after 'Science and Health/ 
which was not labeled Vol. L, and which had al- 
ready been in the world three years. This odd 
little, brown book, with the ark and troubled 
waves upon its cover, is made up from a few 
chapters snatched from the 1875 edition, inter- 
larded with vigorous rhetoric such as the follow- 
ing apostrophe to Spofford : 

" 'Behold, thou criminal mental marauder, that 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 79 

would blot out the sunshine of the earth, that 
would sever friends, destroy virtue, put out Truth, 
and murder in secret the innocent, befouling thy 
track with the trophies of thy guilt, — I say, Be- 
hold the "cloud, no bigger than a man's hand," 
already rising in the horizon of Truth, to pour 
down upon thy guilty head the hailstones of 
doom!'" 

Read the following and remember her later 
claim of divine guidance: 

"Mesmerism is practiced through manipula- 
tion — and without it. And we have learned by new r 
observation the fool who saith 'there is no God' 
attempts more evil without a sign than with it. 
Since 'Science and Health' first went to press we 
have observed the crimes of another mesmeric 
outlaw, in a variety of ways, who does not as a 
common thing manipulate, in cases where he sul- 
lenly attempted to avenge himself of certain in- 
dividuals, etc. But we had not before witnessed 
the malpractioner's fable with manipulation, and 
supposed it was not done without it; but have 
learned it is the addenda to what we have de- 
scribed in a previous edition, but without manipu- 
lating the head." * 

This comedy increased ; the disease grew worse 
in Mrs. Eddy's mind. These were the years be- 
fore she had an adviser like Rev. Wiggin, who 
could draw his ample salary, enjoy the comedy, 
and make improvements at the same time. 

She would have violent attacks, which she at- 

i Science and Health (1878), p. 136. 



80 FACTS AND FABLES 

tributed to Kennedy and Spofford. Her students 
took all this seriously, and the more faithful of 
them came to be a bodyguard for her, and fre- 
quently had to do service for long hours at night. 
This comedy went from one extreme to another 
until it developed into the last case of witchcraft 
ever tried out in the courts of Massachusetts. 
Had she and her hysterical followers represented 
the high level of intelligence of that time, the 
horrors of the Salem witchcraft of two hundred 
years before would have been repeated. If her 
followers of today took the devil she left them 
as frantically as their leader did, we would have 
our hospitals for the insane filled with the victims 
of her disease. Happily there are enough among 
them whose earlier education acts as the equilib- 
rium that keeps the more romantic and fanciful 
somewhat stable. 

Spofford, like Kennedy, built up a successful 
practice which was a thorn in Mrs. Eddy's side. 
It seems that she used every means in her power 
to ruin his business. She filed a bill in equity 
against him to recover tuition and royalties on his 
practice. A few weeks later she brought in a 
bill of complaint petitioning the court to restrain 
him from using his evil power. This came to be 
known as the witchcraft case and was the sub- 
ject of considerable merriment by a sane public. 
The judge sustained a demurrer, declaring with a 
smile that it was not within the power of the 
court to control Mr. Spofford's mind. The case 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 81 

was appealed and the appeal waived the following 
November. 

The bill of complaint read as follows : "Humbly 
complaining, the plaintiff, Lucreta L. S. Brown, 
of Ipswich, in said county of Essex, showeth un- 
to your Honors, that Daniel H. Spofford, of New- 
buryport, in said county of Essex, the defendant 
in above entitled action, is a mesmerist and prac- 
tices the art of mesmerism and by his said art and 
power of his mind influences and controls the 
minds and bodies of other persons and uses his 
said power and art for the purpose of injuring the 
persons and property and social relations of others 
and does by said means so injure them. 

"And the plaintiff further showeth that the 
said Daniel Spofford has, at divers times and 
places since the year 1875, wrongfully and mali- 
ciously and with intent to injure the plaintiff, 
caused the plaintiff by means of his said power 
and art great suffering of body and mind and 
severe spinal pains and neuralgia and a tempo- 
rary suspension of mind, and still continues to 
cause the plaintiff the same. And the plaintiff has 
reason to fear and does fear that he will con- 
tinue in the future to cause the same. And the 
plaintiff says that said injuries are great and of 
an irreparable nature and that she is wholly un- 
able to escape from the control and influence he 
so exercises upon her and from the aforesaid ef- 
fects of said control and influence." 

This was not the end, however, of the Spofford 
case. Asa G. Eddy, her husband, took Malicious 



82 FACTS AND FABLES 

Animal Magnetism so seriously that he lived in 
constant terror of it. No demon was ever more 
real to the savage mind than was the evil of M. A. 
M. to him. The Eddy home was little short of 
a madhouse on this theme. Everything that went 
amiss was due to its influence. If she lost a stu- 
dent it was the work of Kennedy and Spofford 
through M. A. M. She would walk the floor at 
night, declaring that Spofford's mind was con- 
trolling her and she could not shake it off. Sym- 
pathetic and simple minded as Mr. Eddy was, he 
must have been concerned to the point of frenzy. 
The McClure history states that he "used to de- 
clare that the man ought to be punished for per- 
secuting her, and believed that Spofford's mind 
was on their track night and day, seeking to break 
down Mrs. Eddy's health, to get their property 
away from them, and to overthrow the move- 
ment." 

The result of all this was that Mr. Eddy and 
Edward J. Arens, who had assisted Mrs. Eddy 
in the witchcraft case a few months before, were 
arrested and indicted on a charge of conspiring 
to murder Daniel Spofford. A saloonkeeper by 
the name of Sargent told Spofford that two men 
— later identified as Eddy and Arens — had of- 
fered him five hundred dollars to kill Mr. Spof- 
ford, and had paid him seventy-five dollars in 
advance. Sargent had also notified the State De- 
tective, Hollis C. Pinkham. At the hearing Sar- 
gent brought in as a witness his sister, who kept 
a house of ill fame, and other characters of like 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 83 

nature. The evidence was sufficient so that Eddy 
and Arens were bound over under three thousand 
dollars' bail. 

The indictment read as follows: "That Ed- 
ward J. Arens and Asa G. Eddy, of Boston, afore- 
said, on the 28th day of July in the year of our 
Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventy- 
eight, with force and arms, being persons of evil 
minds and dispositions, did then and there unlaw- 
fully conspire, combine and agree together felon- 
iously, willfully, and of their malice aforethought, 
to procure, hire, incite and solicit one James L. 
Sargent, for a certain sum of money, to wit, the 
sum of five hundred dollars, to be paid to said 
Sargent by them, said Arens and Eddy, felon- 
iously, willfully, and of his, said Sargent's malice 
aforethought, in some way and manner and by 
some means, instruments and weapons, to said 
jurors unknown, one Daniel H. Spofford, to kill 
and murder. Against the law, peace and dignity 
of said Common wealth." 

The case was dismissed by the district attorney. 
The reasons were never known, though the costs 
were paid by Mr. Eddy. 

Mrs. Eddy's version of the conspiracy given 
in the 1881 edition of "Science and Health" may 
be seen from the following paragraphs : 

"The purpose of the plotters was evidently to 
injure the reputation of Metaphysical practice, 
and to embarrass us for money at a time when 
they hoped to cripple us in the circulation of our 
book. This is seen in the fact that our name w r as 



84 FACTS AND FABLES 

in any way introduced into the case when we 
were not implicated by the law and by the Gos- 
pel." 

'The mental practitioners managed that en- 
tire plot; and if the leading demonologist can 
exercise the power over mind, and govern the 
conclusions and acts of people, as he has boasted 
to us that he could do, he had ample motives for 
the exercise of his demonology from the fact 
that a civil suit was pending against him for the 
collection of a note for a thousand dollars, which 
suit Mr. Arens was jointly interested in." 

Edward J. Arens soon after this fell from 
grace and joined the ranks of the "mesmerists, " 
making the black triumvirate that, in imagination, 
pursued the Eddys day and night. Their most 
dangerous influence took the form of arsenical 
poisoning, mentally administered. Mr. Eddy's 
health began to fail and Mrs. Eddy diagnosed it 
as arsenical poisoning, mentally administered by 
the enemy. He was convinced that he was be- 
ing slowly poisoned and daily treated according 
to her formula to ward off the influence. 

Finally Dr. Noyes, a regular physician, was 
called in, and he explained that Mr. Eddy was 
suffering from well defined heart disease. He 
died June 3rd. Mrs. Eddy telegraphed imme- 
diately for Dr. Noyes to come up from Lynn to 
Boston and perform an autopsy. "The autopsy 
was private and was conducted at the widow's 
request. Dr. Noyes found that death had re- 
sulted from organic disease of the heart, the 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 85 

aortic valve being destroyed and the surrounding 
tissue infiltrated with calcareous matter/ ' 

Mrs. Eddy immediately gave out the following 
interview to the Boston Post of June 5th, 1882: 

"My husband's death was due to malicious mes- 
merism. Dr. C. J. Eastman, who attended the 
case after it had taken an alarming turn, declares 
the symptoms to be the same as those of arsenical 
poisoning. On the other hand, Dr. Rufus K. 
Noyes, late of the City Hospital, who held an 
autopsy over the body today, affirms that the 
corpse is free from all material poison, although 
Dr. Eastman still holds to his original belief. I 
know that it was poison that killed him, not ma- 
terial poison, but mesmeric poison. My husband 
was in uniform health, and but seldom complained 
of any kind of ailment. During his brief illness, 
just preceding his death, his continual cry was, 
'Only relieve me of this continual suggestion 
through the mind of poison, and I will recover/ 
It is well known that by constantly dwelling upon 
any subject in thought finally comes the poison of 
belief through the whole system. ... I never 
saw a more self-possessed man than dear Mr. 
Eddy was. He said to Dr. Eastman, when he was 
finally called to attend him : 'My case is nothing 
I cannot attend to myself, although to me it acts 
the same as poison and seems to pervade my whole 
system, just as that would.' 

'This is not the first case known where death 
has occurred from what appeared to be poison, 
and was so declared by the attending physician, 



86 FACTS AND FABLES 

but in which the body, on being thoroughly ex- 
amined by an autopsy, was shown to possess no 
signs of material poison. There was such a case 
m New York. Everyone at first declared poison 
to have been the cause of death, as the symptoms 
were all there; but an autopsy contradicted the 
belief, and it was shown that the victim had had 
no opportunity of procuring poison. I afterwards 
learned that she had been very active in advo- 
cating the merits of our college. Oh! isn't it 
terrible, that this fiend of malpractice is in the 
land ! The only remedy that is effectual in meet- 
ing this terrible power possessed by the evil- 
minded is to counteract it by the same method 
that I use in counteracting poison. They require 
the same remedy. Circumstances debarred me 
from taking hold of my husband's case. He de- 
clared himself perfectly capable of carrying him- 
self through, and I was so entirely absorbed in 
business that I permitted him to try, and when I 
awakened to the danger it was too late. I have 
cured worse cases before, but took hold of them 
in time. I don't think that Dr. Carpenter had 
anything to do with my husband's death, but I 
do believe it was the rejected students — students 
who were turned away from our college because 
of their unworthiness and immorality. Today I 
sent for one of the students my husband had 
helped liberally, and given money, not knowing 
how unworthy he was. I wished him to come 
that I might prove to him how, by metaphysics, 
I could show the cause of my husband's death. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 87 

He was as pale as a ghost when he came to the 
door and refused to enter, or to believe that I 
knew what caused his death. Within half an 
hour after he left I felt the same attack my hus- 
band felt, the same that caused his death. I in- 
stantly gave myself the same treatment that I 
would use in the case of arsenical poisoning, and 
so I recovered, just the same as I could have 
caused my husband to recover had I taken the 
case in time. After a certain amount of mes- 
meric poison has been administered it can not be 
averted. No power of mind can resist it, It must 
be met with resistive action of the mind at the 
start, which will counteract it. We all know 
that disease of any kind cannot reach the body 
except through the mind, and that if the mind is 
cured the disease is soon relieved. Only a few 
days ago I disposed of a tumor in twenty-four 
hours that the doctors had said must be removed 
with the knife. I changed the course of the mind 
to counteract the effect of the disease. This 
proves the myth of matter. Mesmerism will 
make an apple burn the hand so that the child 
will cry. My husband never spoke of death as 
something we were to meet, but only as a phrase 
of mortal belief — I do believe in God's supremacy 
over error, and this gives me peace. I do be- 
lieve, and have been told, that there is a price 
set upon my head. One of my students, a mal- 
practioner, has been heard to say that he would 
follow 7 us to the grave. He has already reached 
my husband. While my husband and I were in 



88 FACTS AND FABLES 

Washington and Philadelphia last winter, we 
were obliged to guard against poison, the same 
symptoms apparent at my husband's death con- 
stantly attending us. And yet the one planning 
the evil against us was in Boston the whole time. 
Today a lady, active in forwarding the good of 
our college, told me that she had been troubled 
almost constantly with arsenical poison symptoms, 
and is now treating them constantly as I directed 
her. Three days ago one of my patients died, 
and the doctor said he died from arsenic, and yet 
there was no material symptoms of poison." 

The usual pretense, that she could have cured 
him if, occurs in this interview. She never failed 
to score one for her healing powers, which, like 
the most of her virtues, are conspicuous in her 
printed pages, but history, otherwise, seems to 
have neglected to remember to mention them. 

The Dr. Eastman of whom she speaks was a 
doctor by the same authority that the prefix ap- 
pears before the name, "Prof. 's boot black- 
ing parlor." 

Many of Mrs. Eddy's students believed that 
Mr. Eddy had died of mesmeric poisoning and 
shared in the terror that reigned in Mrs. Eddy's 
home. Georgine Milmine gives this vivid de- 
scription of the state of mind that prevailed. 
"She declared that mesmerism had broken down 
her every defense, that her students were power- 
less to treat against it, and that at last she, her- 
self, was prostrated. Twice, she said, she had 
resuscitated her husband from the power which 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 89 

was strangling him, but the third time her 
strength was exhausted. Mesmerism was sub- 
merging them, and she felt that she was barely 
keeping her head above water. This was the end, 
she told her faithful women; undoubtedly she 
would speedily follow her husband. The light of 
truth was to be put out, and the world would 
again begin its dreary vigil of centuries." 

Mrs. Eddy's nocturnal seizures were more fre- 
quent than ever, and her students were called at 
all hours to combat the enemy. The seizures 
usually took on the symptoms of arsenical poison- 
ing. This supposed activity of the enemy called 
for the marshalling of her strongest forces. She 
therefore organized a secret society called the 
P. M. (Private Meeting society). The society 
met twice a day in Mrs. Eddy's parlor and con- 
fronted the enemy. Now she had charged the 
enemy with using poisoned bullets, quite contrary 
to international law governing munitions of war. 
The Mrs. Eddy of her own making in her printed 
pages would have adhered to at least the rules 
of civilized warfare. 

Jack London's fertile imagination describes the 
destruction of hundreds of millions of Chinese 
through a campaign of extermination, whereby 
airships directed by white men scattered over the 
empire cultures of the most virulent diseases 
grown in the laboratories of science. It may be 
that he got the suggestion for this nightmare 
from the dark doings of the P. M. society. 



90 FACTS AND FABLES 

Believing, as Mrs. Eddy did, that arsenic could 
be administered mentally, she had her students in 
secret conclave fire volley after volley of mental 
contagion and poison at the "enemy." She would 
say, "Treat Kennedy. Say to him: Your sins 
have found you out. You are affected as you 
wished to affect me. Your evil thought reacts 
upon you. You are bilious, you are consumptive, 
you have liver trouble, you have been poisoned by 
arsenic." 

The following is from Peabody's Religio- 
Medical Masquerade: 

"To bring out clearly the effect upon Mrs. 
Eddy's daily life of her genuine belief in this 
diabolical thing she calls malicious animal mag- 
netism, and the efforts to avail herself of the 
supposed power of mind to cause disease and 
death, the following letter, received from a gen- 
tleman, now a practicing physician, who in his 
earlier manhood was attracted to Mrs. Eddy and 
her teachings, is incorporated here: 

"'I lived in the "College" with Mrs. Eddy 
and her family for nearly a year, and had ample 
opportunity to observe all the things I now tell 
you; I shall not make a statement without know- 
ing it is absolutely true. 

" 'As you desire information in regard to her 
teaching of malicious animal magnetism, I will 
confine myself mostly to that subject. 

" 'Nearly two-thirds of the time of her class 
lectures was taken up with teaching us how to 
"meet the enemy," as she called Richard Ken- 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 91 

nedy, Edward Arens, Clara Choate, and her 
mother, Mrs. Childs. We were taught that Rich- 
ard Kennedy, especially, was the "Arch Enemy'' 
of Christian Science, and of Mrs. Eddy herself; 
that he had learned the art of using "malicious 
animal magnetism" on Mrs. Eddy and her stu- 
dents; that he had "secret service" men and 
women who watched every movement of Mrs. 
Eddy, and of each one living with her; that we 
could not go out without someone following, and 
watching us, reporting to the "ring of enemies," 
namely, Kennedy, Arens, Choate and Childs. We 
were taught that by being aware of all of our 
movements — just how we looked, and who our 
patients were — they had the mental power to so 
mesmerize our minds as to cause us to meet with 
defeat in all our attempts to heal ; that they were 
informed of the diseases and weaknesses from 
which we had been healed, and by malicious 
thoughts and concentration upon us could cause 
us to relapse into our old forms of disease. 

" 'Mrs. Eddy was constantly having attacks of 
illness (always in the night). We were often 
called up about eleven o'clock at night to treat 
her and were obliged to remain up until about 
two o'clock a. m. These attacks, we were told, 
were brought on by the "enemy" working through 
us as her students. She claimed that the only 
way the "enemy" could reach her was through 
her students, she being so strong and so pure that 
their "malicious animal magnetism" could not 
reach her in any other way. So we used to go 



92 FACTS AND FABLES 

into the parlor after breakfast and supper, each 
day, and mentally "take up the enemy. ,, We 
were taught to recognize the error, and to treat 
ourselves and the "enemy/ 5 so that they (the 
enemy) could have no power over us, or our 
patients; and every time we gave the treatments 
we were taught to first "treat the enemy." 

" 'The result of all this was that Mrs. Eddy 
was always full of fear, as the "enemy" were 
supposed to have power to prevent all kinds of 
desired results, not only in, healing, but in busi- 
ness as well. 

" T was told to treat the "enemy" (Kennedy, 
Arens, Choate and Childs) to cause their "old 
beliefs" to return, "and prostrate them at once." 
"Old beliefs" meant former diseases from which 
they had been healed, in some cases even tumors 
and cancers. 

" 'I could write pages of things said and done, 
to show that insane idea of the power of mali- 
cious men and women to nearly, if not quite, kill 
people. We were taught that they had killed 
several students of Mrs. Eddy. I was taught that 
Kennedy and Arens knew how to treat people in 
a way to cause "sixty symptoms of arsenic 
poisoning." ' " 

While, of course, this comedy had no further 
effect than the injury done to themselves, it does 
indicate that the moral turpitude — the criminal 
intent — was there; and the primitive doctrine of 
an eye for an eye was enacted in a Christian age 
in the most grotesque fashion. Connecting the 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 93 

series of events — the conspiracy to have Spofford 
put out of the way; the death of Mr. Eddy 
through arsenic poisoning, "mentally adminis- 
tered" ; and, finally, the secret and more modern 
effort to destroy the enemy through like poison- 
ing; one must hasten to seek refuge behind the 
admonition, "judge not that ye be not judged." 

Frederick W. Peabody, of the Boston bar, has 
had an intimate acquaintance with the devious 
ways of Mary Baker Eddy and those closest to 
her. Since I shall quote at some length from his 
instructive book, "The Religio-Medical Mas- 
querade," I will let his own words introduce him 
to those who may herein learn for the first time 
of his work. 

"My first encounter with Christian Science 
came about through the employment by the Arena 
Company, publishers of the Arena Magazine, in 
1899. In the May number of the magazine of 
that year an article by Mrs. Josephine C. Wood- 
bury, that was in the nature of an expose of 
Christian Science, was published, and instead of 
bringing suit against Mrs. Woodbury or the 
magazine for the statements contained in the 
article, an endeavor was made, in Mrs. Eddy's 
interest, to suppress the magazine by a suit in 
equity to restrain its publication based upon the 
incorporation in the article of a photograph of 
Mrs. Eddy said to have been copyrighted. The 
Arena Company retained me to represent its in- 
terests in the litigation, and during that employ- 
ment I was brought in contact with the author 



94 FACTS AND FABLES 

of the article, and from her got my first inkling 
of the real character of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy, 
and her religio-medical-commercial system. 

"Some time after the Woodbury-Eddy litiga- 
tion, I was retained by Rev. Minot J. Savage, 
then of New York City, to collect for him and 
at his expense, in legal evidential form, the facts 
showing unmistakably Mrs. Eddy's false pretense 
and fraud, and in pursuance of this employment 
I examined numerous individuals and took their 
statements under oath for Mr. Savage. Later, 
when McClure's Magazine undertook the pub- 
lication of the facts of Mrs. Eddy's career, I was 
employed to procure the sworn statements of 
many individuals in support of the magazine's 
story, and shortly after I was retained by Mrs. 
Eddy's two sons, George W. Glover, born to her 
by her first husband, and Edward J. Foster, her 
son by adoption, to co-operate with their other 
lawyers, Hon. William E. Chandler, ex-United 
States Senator from New Hampshire, being 
senior counsel, in the prosecution in the courts 
of New Hampshire of a suit in equity for the 
appointment of a receiver to have charge of their 
mother's large estate for her benefit, upon the 
ground that, through old age, mental weakness 
and delusions, if not actual insanity, she was in- 
competent to have the care of it. 

"As the Massachusetts attorney in this litiga- 
tion it became my duty in the city of Boston to 
examine, under oath, many of Mrs. Eddy's most 
intimate friends, and the highest officials of or- 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 95 

ganized Christian Science, who, by legal process, 
were compelled to produce many hundreds of 
personal letters received by them from her. This 
last professional experience completed my under- 
standing of Christian Science, and the facts 
herein set forth are, almost without exception, 
based either on Mrs. Eddy's own published utter- 
ances, her private correspondence, the sworn testi- 
mony of witnesses, or the admission under oath 
of her most confidential friends and followers; 
and I give my book to the world with the full 
understanding of the responsibility I assume and 
a complete willingness to justify in any legal 
tribunal every statement I make/' 

In discussing Mrs. Eddy's obsession and char- 
acter Mr. Peabody says : 

"Whatever may have been the cause of Mrs. 
Eddy's hatred of Spofford, she wished him 
killed, and to that end instructed her students to 
sit together daily, at noon and in the evening, and 
by concerted mental concentration hurl disease 
into Mr. Spofford. 

"I do not contend that Mrs. Eddy, or Chris- 
tian Scientists, or others, ever killed or can kill 
or afflict with disease any other person by absent 
mental treatment, and one of my strong reasons 
for this confident belief is that I am still per- 
mitted to walk the earth. I only seek to show 
the murderous purpose in the heart of the woman 
who is pretending to be the voice of God to this 
age and the equal of Jesus Christ. 

"What connection there was between the fail- 



96 FACTS AND FABLES 

tire of Mrs. Eddy's effort to kill Spofford or to 
have him killed by mental means and her hus- 
band's alleged efforts to have him killed by phys- 
ical means, I do not positively know. I did not 
hear Mrs. Eddy say to Mr. Eddy : 'Asa, we have 
tried and tried and tried to kill that man Spof- 
ford, but he is a tough proposition, and we have 
made no progress. Now you pay Sargent $500 
to lie in wait for him with a club and we will 
see if that won't settle him/ That was the 
charge against Eddy. Nothing mental about the 
club form of treatment! I did not hear Mrs. 
Eddy say that to Eddy, but I very much doubt 
if he would have found himself in the position 
in which he was placed, if his dominating help- 
meet had offered any objection to the thing of 
which he was accused. I do not know that Mrs. 
Eddy knew anything about Asa G. Eddy's under- 
taking to have Spofford killed; but I do know 
that what I have stated is true, and I do know 
that the human mind necessarily makes deduc- 
tions from circumstances; and I do not doubt 
every human mind that believes the facts to be 
as I have stated them will make the same deduc- 
tion that my mind makes. 

"For some unexplained reason this indictment 
was never prosecuted ; but, upon the payment of 
costs by Eddy, was nol prossed. There was no 
disproof of the sworn testimony given in the 
police court. Eddy never asked for a hearing, he 
never insisted upon the vindication only a trial 
could give. He put his hand into his pocket and 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 97 

paid a considerable sum to escape a trial; and 
Mrs. Eddy and her friends called that a vindica- 
tion. Does an innocent man accused of serious 
crime pay money to escape a trial, or does he de- 
mand a full hearing and establish his innocence? 

"And Spofford is not the only enemy the good 
'Mother* of Christian Science has sought to dis- 
pose of by mental murder. Richard Kennedy 
and Clara E. Choate, both now living in Boston, 
and Edward J. Arens also fell under the ban, and 
at Mrs. Eddy's instigation received so-called men- 
tal treatment designed to relieve them of the 
burden of the flesh by divers diseases." 

The above scenes are descriptive of the early 
part of the '80s, when new "revelations" were 
being received, as "Science and Health" was 
undergoing constant changes. Since we are en- 
gaged in examining the spirit, to determine 
whether it be of God or man, it will be well to 
follow the work of the "demons" still farther. 
Indeed, that illuminating chapter in "Science and 
Health," called the "apocalypse," cannot be ap- 
preciated without a knowledge of Mrs. Eddy's 
obsessions. 

In fact, you, my good reader, if you stand 
without the gates of the "New Jerusalem," can- 
not appreciate the place assigned to you in igno- 
rance of the rise and evolution of the "Christian 
Science" devil. The true definition of this devil 
is — anyone or anything that questions Mrs. 
Eddy's divine authority or the tenets of her doc- 
trine. Her "spiritual" definition for devil is, 



98 FACTS AND FABLES 

"evil, error, a belief in sin, sickness and death, 
animal magnetism, hypnotism." 

The first attempt at a church organization was 
in 1875, the year "Science and Health," the 
future "pastor," made its first appearance. The 
organization was the result of the initiative of a 
number of students who had been members of 
churches and missed their habits of worship. 
Mrs. Eddy was employed at five dollars per Sun- 
day to lecture. A few meetings only were held, 
as the spiritualists annoyed her with their pres- 
ence. It was organized with eight members. 

In 1879 Mrs. Eddy and her students estab- 
lished The Church of Christ (scientists) with 
twenty-six charter members. The organization 
was effected with the greatest secrecy in order 
that the "enemy" might be circumvented. 

While lecturing before her audience she pro- 
vided a comedy that reminds one of a Chinese 
funeral, where the corpse on the way to the ceme- 
tery is preceded by those whose business it is to 
retard the progress of the devil by scattering in- 
numerable pieces of paper with holes in them 
through which the devil must pass before he can 
torment the deceased. She had a number of her 
faithful bodyguard sit in the front of the audi- 
ence protecting her while she spoke, by keeping 
up a constant "demonstration" or "treatment" 
against the "enemy." 

Demonology became the principal theme. So 
sensitive to these supposed influences did she be- 
come, that she declared that she could tell which 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 99 

tormentor was busy at a given time, and some- 
times recognized their concerted action. So 
dominant did this and other factors become that 
eight of her principal members withdrew in a 
body, and offered as a reason their leader's 
''departure from the straight and narrow road 
made manifest by frequent ebullitions of temper, 
love of money, and the appearance of hypocrisy." 

Instead of accepting their resignation Mrs. 
Eddy notified them that they were liable to ex- 
pulsion and summoned them to meet the church 
on October 29, 1881. This they did not do, but 
two other members sent in their resignations, 
stating that they "could no longer entertain the 
subject of mesmerism which had lately been made 
uppermost in the meetings and in Mrs. Eddy's 
talks." 

During the years of her stay in Lynn she was 
in the courts so often, and always in a quarrel 
with some of her students, that finally she real- 
ized that there was a prejudice too difficult to 
surmount. She left Lynn in 1882 and took up 
her residence in Boston, then being sixty-one 
years old. She had established her Massachusetts 
Metaphysical College, and this she moved with 
her to Boston, a slight task, since it consisted of 
herself only. Its seat was her parlor and she con- 
stituted its faculty. 

Mrs. Eddy remained in Boston seven years, 
when she retired to Concord in 1889. She was 
driven about by M. A. M., which "devil" con- 
tinued to pursue every detail of her life. It 



100 FACTS AND FABLES 

sometimes spoiled the fit of a gown, produced 
dissention among her students, caused her to lose 
her most promising followers, and always sought 
to devour the "child/' "the divine idea," to which 
she was constantly giving a new birth. During 
her stay in Boston she was in constant "flight" 
from the "enemy." Her adopted son, E. J. 
Foster-Eddy, had his hands quite full in helping 
to outwit the "enemy." She moved into several 
houses, but wherever she went "mesmerism" 
appeared. 

She was getting out a new edition of "Science 
and Health" and attributed every trifling obsta- 
cle to "mesmerism." At last, to drive back the 
swelling tide of its influence, she set Foster-Eddy 
and several students to demonstrating over the 
Riverside Press. To each healer she assigned a 
different department, the press room, bindery, 
etc. To Foster-Eddy she assigned the heads of 
the concern. A.fter instructing him how to 
"treat" them, she wrote: "You know they can- 
not be made sick for printing and binding God's 
book, and you must show your faith by works in 
this instance." 

Some of the students evidently did not come 
up to the necessary standard in "treating" the 
press, for she wrote to Foster-Eddy that "those 
persons named are utterly incapable of handling 
the Red Dragon. They can command serpents 
but not the last species. 

"At once dismiss your help and confine your 
treatment to the proprietor, Mr. W , and 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 101 

electricity. Take no other personality into 
thought but the ones employed at the press. 

"All is God; good, there, is no evil." 

"Malicious Animal Magnetism" (M. A. M.) 
had not overlooked her "Christian Science Jour- 
nal" and she ordered her publisher to take it and 
flee with it. He remonstrated, but the argument, 
"God has directed me in the matter; have you 
anything more to say?" closed all remonstrance, 
and he went to Philadelphia and arranged for the 
next issue to be printed there. While completing 
the arrangements he received a telegram from 
Mrs. Eddy ordering him to bring the Journal 
back to Boston at once. She must have thought 
that she had given the "devil" a solar plexus 
"treatment" and was safe from further inter- 
ference. 

The question of selecting an editor for the 
"Journal" was up. She wrote her manager, say- 
ing: "God, our God, has just told me who to 
recommend to you for the editor of the Journal." 
Almost immediately he received another letter 
from her retracting the recommendation on the 
ground that "it is a mistake; he is not fit. It 
was not God evidently that suggested that thought 
but the person who suggests many things men- 
tally, but I have before been able to discriminate." 

Her publisher and manager had suggested to 
her that it would be better if she did not make 
herself so conspicuous by pushing forward her 
own personality in the Journal. He was met by 
such statements as this from her: 



102 FACTS AND FABLES 

"God will not let me be silent relative to our 
business here yesterday, but demands me to 
answer reminding you of your feelings towards 
me. 

While Mrs. Eddy was hunting for a way to 
get control of her church by a "circuitous, novel 
way/' as she called that which in the language 
of the street is called a "trick of the trade," her 
lawyer found the way "guided by Divine Love." 

She has at times made money by selling articles, 
such as souvenir spoons, which were supposed 
to impart a virtue, or so believed by many of her 
fanciful followers. On one occasion she saved 
some money by putting a curse upon it in the 
place of a blessing. Her gardener had been with 
her but a short time, and wishing to offer to pay 
him something extra for the expense he had been 
to in moving, she instructed her adopted son to 
take three hundred dollars and offer it to him, 
but she added: "It will prove a curse to him if 
he takes it." The gardener's superstition on 
hearing this overcame his feeling of need, and 
he refused it. 

She told her adopted son, Foster-Eddy, not to 
leave her if she should tell him to go away, but 
that "mesmerism" had come between them. He, 
in time, went the way of all those closest to her. 
No matter how faithful a follower had been, nor 
how long he had served her every wish, one after 
another was sacrificed. She declared that he was 
governed by hypnotism to work against her. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE ROMANTIC ELEMENT IN CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

There is today, and there has always been, a 
romantic element in Christian Science. Mrs. 
Eddy encouraged this, if only the fanciful specu- 
lations pertained to her glorification. But when 
anyone else began to shine, and gathered about 
him admiring followers, she was not slow to 
throw a bomb into such a camp, and, when the 
smoke had cleared away, the leader found him- 
self under the debris of the shock, with followers 
scampering back into the fold of the "elect." 

The history of the rise and fall of Mrs. 
Josephine Curtis Woodbury is worth our time, 
because it throws its light upon the evolution of 
the Christian Science Devil, and upon the real 
character of Mrs. Eddy. 

Mrs. Woodbury had been associated with Mrs. 
Eddy since 1879 and was one of her most suc- 
cessful healers and teachers. She became very 
popular with a faction of the Christian Scientists 
in Boston. She was one of those "Scientists" 
who believed in carrying a theory or teaching 
into practice. So, when Mrs. Eddy had taught, 
in private, that generation of life did not require 
both sexes, Mrs. Woodbury taught it also, and 
furthermore "demonstrated" the teaching by 
having a son born to her which she claimed to be 

103 



104 FACTS AND FABLES 

mentally generated. Now this would be building 
upon the "demonstrations" of Mrs. Eddy, and 
that was against the rule. She had heretofore 
decapitated all those who gave evidence of per- 
sonal ambition, and for a teacher as popular as 
Mrs. Woodbury to do something that Mrs. Eddy 
had not had opportunity of doing since her "dis- 
covery" was not to be tolerated. 

Since Mrs. Eddy had taught this and the oracle 
was believed by many who took her sign-board- 
advertising seriously, she was in a close place. 
If she acknowledged the miracle done by Mrs. 
Woodbury she was then in danger of having a 
formidable rival. Had Mrs. Eddy made her 
"discovery earlier" in life, and afterwards given 
birth to a child, the chances are that the child's 
father would have been slighted in the stories 
she would have told of its origin, just as in Mrs. 
Woodbury's case. 

Now Mrs. Eddy never sacrificed a romantic 
statement of "Truth" if she could sacrifice some- 
one and save the statement, however ridiculous 
it might be. So in this case she did not submit 
her teaching to the altar of sacrifice, but with 
some relief gave her pupil to pay the price of 
"sin." 

When the news of the birth of Mrs. Wood- 
bury's child, named "The Prince of Peace," and 
spoken of as "Little Immanuel," was brought to 
Mrs. Eddy, she indignantly exclaimed, "Child of 
Light ! She knows it is an imp of Satan !" 

Mrs. Woodbury, of course, lost her place in 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 105 

the church. She felt this keenly and tried to get 
Mrs. Eddy to use her influence with the other 
authorities that seemed to be. There was no 
authority besides Mrs. Eddy, but she had built 
a fortress behind which she retired in seclusion 
and safety, from which she could always fire a 
gun into any camp without the victim knowing 
from whence the shot came. This was accom- 
plished through the publication by her of seven 
fixed rules as follows : 

"i. I shall not be consulted verbally, or 
through letters, as to whose advertisement shall 
or shall not appear in the Christian Science 
Journal. 

"2. I shall not be consulted verbally, or 
through letters, as to the matter that shall be 
published in the Journal and Christian Science 
series. 

"3. I shall not be consulted verbally, or 
through letters, on marriage, or divorce, or family 
affairs of any kind. 

"4. I shall not be consulted verbally, or 
through letters, on the choice of pastors for 
churches. 

"5. I shall not be consulted verbally, or 
through letters, on disaffections, if there should 
be any, between the students of Christian Sci- 
ence. 

"6. I shall not be consulted verbally, or 
through letters, on who shall be admitted as mem- 
bers, or dropped from the membership of the 
Christian Science churches or associations. 



106 FACTS AND FABLES 

"7. I am not to be consulted verbally, or 
through letters, on disease and the treatment of 
the sick, but I shall love all mankind — and work 
for their welfare." 

When Mrs. Woodbury appealed to her to help 
her get admission to the church again, she shifted 
the responsibility upon the First Members, behind 
whom she stood with absolute power. Thus she 
could strike a blow and others would take the 
blame. Her desire was to eliminate such mem- 
bers as were dangerous to her authority. She 
published the following article and had it read 
before the congregation at the June Communion 
service, only a few weeks after the death of Mrs. 
Woodbury's husband: 

"The doom of the Babylonish woman referred 
to in Revelation is being fulfilled. This woman, 
drunken with the blood of the saints and the 
blood of the martyrs of Jesus, drunk of the wine 
of her fornication, would enter even the church 
and retaining the heart of the harlot and the pur- 
pose of the destroying angel — poison such as 
drink of the living water." And further : "And 
a voice was heard saying, come out of her my 
people and harken not to her lies that ye receive 
not her plagues, for her sins have reached unto 
Heaven and God hath remembered her iniquities. 
Double unto her double, according to her work : 
in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double. 
For she saith in her heart, I am no widow. 
Therefore shall her plague come in one day, 
death, mourning and famine: for strong is the 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 107 

Lord God who judgeth her. That which the 
Revelator saw in spiritual vision will be accom- 
plished. The Babylonish woman is fallen: and 
who shall mourn over the widowhood of lust, of 
her that hath become the habitation of devils, and 
the hold of every foul spirit and the cage of every 
unclean bird." 

When Mrs. Eddy gave the above burst of 
venom she was almost eighty years old. She did 
not seem to mellow under the physical changes 
leading toward death. She could use such vitu- 
perations for a communion service ; but then, the 
communion, since discontinued by her order, 
never did stand for the same in her church as it 
does in the Christian churches. 

Mrs. Woodbury brought a suit for criminal 
libel against Mrs. Eddy, maintaining that it was 
an attack upon her, though her name was not 
mentioned. She lost her suit because the Chris- 
tian Scientists that were summoned as witnesses 
testified that they had not understood the article 
to have been made in reference to Mrs. Wood- 
bury in particular. "Mr. William G. Nixon, 
Mrs. Eddy's former publisher, stated that he 
understood that by the 'Babylonish woman' Mrs. 
Eddy meant Josephine Woodbury." 

"During the trial the courtroom was crowded 
with Christian Scientists, and Mrs. Woodbury 
decided that they had affected the outcome of the 
suit by concentrating their minds upon the judge 
and witnesses, and by 'treating' them in Mrs. 
Eddy's behalf. She, accordingly, would not per- 



108 FACTS AND FABLES 

mit an appeal, but abjured Christian Science and 
retired into private life, and with Mrs. Wood- 
bury's defeat perished the romantic movement in 
Christian Science." 1 

In the year 1907, so shortly removed, Mrs. 
Eddy gave evidence of her grasping, soulless 
character. She had but one child, now an old 
man with a family of several children. He 
(George W. Glover) became convinced that his 
mother was incompetent to manage her property 
and asked the court to appoint a receiver and to 
that end brought suit. His attorneys were Fred- 
erick W. Peabody and Hon. William E. Chand- 
ler. As a child, George W. Glover — her son- 
was so sadly neglected that his attorney, Mr. Pea- 
body, states that at the age of sixty-five he can 
neither read nor write. If she was an unnatural 
mother when she was young, and he a child, I 
do not know how to describe her actions as given 
by Mr. Peabody when so recently they were both 
old, and she so near the grave. Mr. Peabody's 
narrative of the incident in point is best stated 
in his own words : 

"A sad and tragic episode in connection with 
the litigation instituted by the sons in reference 
to Mrs. Eddv's mental condition, was the suicide 
at the Parker House, in Boston, on April 20th, 
1907, of Miss Mary C. Tomlinson, sister of 
Irving C. Tomlinson, a former universalist min- 
ister, but then, and now, a Christian Science 
healer, and of Rev. Vincent Tomlinson, a uni- 

iLife of Mary Baker Eddy, p. 440. Milmine. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 109 

versalist minister of Worcester, Mass. Miss 
Tomlinson had lived with her brother, Irving, at 
Concord, N. H., and had been a reader in the 
Christian Science Church there and an ardent dis- 
ciple of Christian Science and of Mrs. Eddy, 
being much in company with her and absolutely 
devoted to her service. After the law r suit by Mrs. 
Eddy's sons began, all the closest friends of Mrs. 
Eddy in Concord (as well as elsewhere) were 
called upon to defend her from the attack, and, 
by the peculiar method of absent and silent men- 
tal treatment, both Mr. Glover and his senior 
counsel, Mr. Chandler, were pressed by the so- 
called 'workers' to 'the utmost of the powers they 
supposed themselves to possess.' 

"Miss Mary C. Tomlinson was not in the least 
degree unwilling to exercise her powers of absent 
treating of persons in order to repel the Stetson 
argument; nor even unwilling to treat Glover and 
Chandler in the ordinary way, trying to make 
them abandon the lawsuit ; but when the decision 
was made at Concord to treat Mrs. Eddy's own 
son and his lawyer in hostile fashion — by send- 
ing arsenical poison into their veins, or otherwise 
putting them to death, Miss Tomlinson's whole 
nature revolted. She had implicit faith in Chris- 
tian Science, she worshiped Mrs. Eddy, she 
believed in the existence of malicious animal mag- 
netism and its devilish power and in the methods 
of counter-working to prevent its evil work; but 
she had never before seen an attempt made to use 
absent treatment diabolically — by putting to death 



110 FACTS AND FABLES 

the enemies of the Church of Christ, Scientist. 
When she opened her eyes to the enormity to be 
practiced in the name of a revengeful church, 
her mind revolted. She determined to leave Con- 
cord, to renounce Mrs. Eddy and all her works 
and to denounce the system to which she had 
been so earnest a servant. Indeed the intense 
revulsion of feeling seems to have upset her men- 
tal balance. Following up her determination, she 
went to Boston on April 19th and wandered 
about, uncertain what to do w r ith herself, at last 
finding her way to the Parker House in the hands 
of a Christian Scientist, where her two brothers, 
being telegraphed for, came to take charge of 
her. 

"Here the tragedy begins. The Parker House 
manager wished her to be seen by Dr. Payne, the 
hotel physician, but did not succeed in getting 
him admission to her rooms. He did, however, 
send to her a nurse from Boothby Hospital, a 
Miss Telfair, who arrived about nine p. m. Later 
Mr. Vincent Tomlinson, the Universalist minis- 
ter, came and with the nurse took charge of his 
sister. 

"About eleven o'clock Mr. Irving C. Tomlin- 
son, the Christian Science healer, arrived and at 
once took controlling charge of Miss Tomlin- 
son — saying that he understood the case and 
knew what to do. Mr. Vincent Tomlinson left 
the rooms and took a room down the corridor, 
which his brother had engaged. The nurse was 
not allowed to stay in the room with Miss Tom- 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 111 

linson, but was placed out in the corridor, while 
Mr. Irving Tomlinson took off his shoes and coat 
and laid down in a connecting room. About one 
o'clock in the morning there was a sound of a 
window being raised in Miss Tomlinson's room 
and the nurse entered quickly from the corridor 
as Irving came in from his room. They found 
she had opened the window, and she said to Irv- 
ing, when he remonstrated, that she wanted to 
look out. They induced her to go back to bed 
and Irving then locked on the inside the door 
from her room to the corridor and took out the 
key and kept it. Miss Telfair went into the cor- 
ridor again and Irving went into his own room. 
About three a. m. Miss Telfair heard the door 
connecting with Irving's room shut and locked 
by Miss Tomlinson. Again she heard the win- 
dow opened, but, having been locked out, could 
not get to Miss Tomlinson. She called for the 
porter and they finally got into Miss Tomlinson's 
room by breaking down the door connecting it 
with Irving's. They found the window wide 
open and the room empty. Miss Tomlinson had 
thrown herself down four stories to the street. 
She was brought back to her room, but never 
spoke and died about five a. m. 

"She had worshiped Mrs. Eddy. She had been 
one of the most devoted of her disciples, and 
when she came to the realization of the infamies 
being practiced in the name of Christ, life lost 
every ray of light and every particle of charm, 



112 FACTS AND FABLES 

and she dashed herself to death upon the stones 
of the street of Boston. 

"Small matter for wonder that, when the 
bruised and mangled body had been carried to 
the chamber Miss Tomlinson had occupied, the 
Universalist minister, standing by the side of his 
dead sister, should solemnly say to his brother, 
the renegade Universalist minister, the Christian 
Science healer, 'Irving, the blood of our sister is 
upon the skirts of Mrs. Eddy.' "* 

The above disclosures by Mr. Peabody are 
made in full view of his responsibility. In dis- 
cussing his responsibility he sounds this challenge 
in the introduction to his book, the date being 
1910: 

"I challenge Mrs. Eddy and the whole Chris- 
tian Science combination to dare to prosecute me 
for libel, and I affirm and shall continue to affirm 
that their omission so to do is an acknowledgment 
of the truth of every statement I make. She 
knows I am telling nothing but the truth, and 
that the whole truth, to be brought out upon a 
judicial investigation, would be more damning 
than the truth as I have presented it. The whole 
truth cannot be told outside of a judicial tribunal. 

"In presenting the substance of this book in 
the form of a lecture to the people of the coun- 
try, from one ocean to the other, the only re- 
sponse has been slander and defamation of me, 
the last resort of the accused who can make no 
defense ; but nobody has met my facts with any- 

1 The Religio-Medical Masquerade, p. 191. Peabody. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 113 

thing like evidence, or undertaken in any serious 
manner to disprove the truth of my most dam- 
aging charges." 

It will be instructive at this point to quote 
from Mrs. Eddy herself regarding her belief in 
the ability of herself and her students to injure 
or kill another through mental treatment. The 
historical evidence seems complete enough to any 
reader who will weigh the evidence at all, to show 
that she made attempt after attempt to destroy 
those who stood in her way, even, as it appears, 
her own son. 

In the first edition of "Science and Health," 
published in 1875, page 123, Mrs. Eddy said: 

"In coming years the person or mind that 
hates his neighbor will have no need to traverse 
his fields, to destroy his flocks and herds, and 
spoil his vines ; or to enter his house to demoral- 
ize his household, for the evil mind will do this 
through mesmerism, and not in propria personce 
be seen committing the deed. Unless this terrible 
hour be met and restrained by Science, mesmer- 
ism, that scourge of man, will leave nothing 
sacred when mind begins to act under direction 
of conscious power." 

On page 175 of the thirteenth edition of "Sci- 
ence and Health," Mrs. Eddy says: 

"If the right mental practice can restore health, 
as is proven beyond a question, it is self-evident 
that a mental malpractice can impair the health 
of those ignorant of the cause and how to treat 
it." 



114 FACTS AND FABLES 

On page 179, Mrs. Eddy says: 

"The evidence of the power that mind exer- 
cises over the body has accumulated in weight 
and clearness until it culminates, at this period, 
in scientific statement and proof. Our courts 
recognize the evidence that goes to prove the 
committal of a crime; then, if it be clear that the 
so-called mind of one mortal has killed another, 
is not this mind proved a murderer, and shall not 
the man be sentenced whose mind, with malice 
aforethought, kills? His hands, without mortal 
mind to aid them, could not murder; but it is 
proven that this mind, without the aid of his 
hands, has killed." 

On page 177 she says: "Mesmerism is prac- 
ticed both with and without manipulation; but 
the evil deed without a sign is also done by the 
manipulator and mental malpractitioner." 

"The secret mental assassin stalks abroad, and 
needs to be branded to be known in what he is 
doing/' 

In "Science and Health," thirty-sixth edition, 
1888, Mrs. Eddy says, on page 220: "It is hoped 
that eventually our laws will take cognizance of 
mental crime." 

On page 515 she says: "This mental-animal 
power (of which the dragon is the type) seeks 
to kill his fellow mortals, morally and physically, 
and then charge the innocent with his crimes." 

On page 516 she says : "The highest degree of 
human ^depravity which is to be found is this 
propulsive will-power, or Animal Magnetism." 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 115 

In Miscellaneous Writings, 1897, on page 222, 
Mrs. Eddy says : 

"The crimes committed under this new regime 
of mind-power, when brought to light, will make 
stout hearts quail Its mystery protects it now, 
for it is not yet known." 

Mrs. Eddy expresses herself in full upon 
"Malicious Animal Magnetism" in the following 
from her Journal of February, 1889. She says: 
"One of the greatest crimes practiced in, or 
known to the ages, is mental assassination. A 
mind liberated from the beliefs of sense, to do 
good by perverting its power, becomes warped 
into the lines of evil without let or hindrance. 
A mind taught its power to touch other minds by 
the transference of thought, for the ends of 
restoration from sickness, or, grandest of all, the 
reformation and almost the transformation into 
the living image and likeness of God — this mind, 
by misusing its freedom, reaches the degree of 
total moral depravity. 

"Does the community know this criminal ? He 
sits at the friendly board and fireside ; he goes to 
their places of worship; he takes his victim by 
the hand, and all the time claims the power and 
carries the will to stab to the heart, to take char- 
acter and life from this friend who gives him his 
hand in full trust, and has, perhaps, toiled and 
suffered to benefit and bless him. . . . 

"It is no longer possible to keep still about 
these things — nay, it is criminal to keep silence 



116 FACTS AND FABLES 

and cover crime that grows bolder and picks off 
its victims as sharpshooters pick off the officers 
of an attacking force. 

"These secret heaven defying enormities must 
be proclaimed, or we become guilty before God 
as accessory after the fact. If a friend were 
fallen upon and maltreated or murdered before 
our eyes, should we hold ourselves guiltless, 
should we count ourselves men and women if we 
buried the secret of the violence and the knowl- 
edge of the assassins? 

"Are we such cowards, knowing the facts as 
we do know, to turn and run? Shall we see the 
evil, the deadly danger that threatens our brother, 
and, to hide ourselves, flee away without warn- 
ing him? 

"The Science of mind uncovers to Scientists 
secret sin, even more distinctly than so-called 
physical crimes are visible to the personal senses ; 
crime is always veiled in obscurity, but science 
fastens guilt upon its author through mind, with 
the certainty and directness of the eye of God 
himself. 

"Human laws will eventually be framed for 
these criminals that now go unwhipped of human 
justice. Human law even now recognizes crime 
as mental, for it seeks always the motive. Rude 
counterfeit, as it is of Divine Justice, it metes 
out punishment or pardons according as it finds, 
or finds not, the evil intent, the mental element. 
The time has come for instructing human justice 
so that these secret criminals shall tremble before 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 117 

the omnipotent finger that points them out to the 
human executioner/' 

In a personal letter to a student, Mrs. Eddy 
said: 

"The mental practitioners or mesmerists em- 
ploy the argument of poison to kill people. They 
cause you or your patients to suffer from arsen- 
ical poison in the blood or stomach, mercurial 
poison, morphine or any other form of mineral, 
vegetable or animal poison which they may name 
in their arguments/' 

Again, she has said: "It was years after we 
were personally attacked by mental malpractice 
before we defended ourselves or taught our stu- 
dents self defense. Until this attack was aimed 
at our life we never realized or even investigated 
it thoroughly and so discovered the full extent 
and purpose of mental malpractice. But we gave 
our attention to it and found how to save the 
scattering remnants of our Christian students 
that had been mown down like grass. We re- 
solved in the strength of God to save them and 
others from the hands of these murderers and to 
find, as sure defense, the ever-present help. Since 
God has shown us our way in Christian healing, 
our mind often heals involuntarily. The mal- 
practioners know this and often have asked us 
about their patients to direct our thoughts to 
them, knowing the benefit therefrom. They 
know, as well as we, that it is impossible for sci- 
ence to produce sickness, but science makes sin 
punish itself. They should have feared for their 



118 FACTS AND FABLES 

own lives in their attempts to kill us. God is 
supreme and the penalty for their sins they can- 
not escape. Turning the attention of the sick to 
us for the benefit they may receive from us, is 
another mild form or species of malpractice that 
is not safe; for if we feel their sufferings, not 
knowing the individual, we shall defend our- 
selves and the result is dangerous to the intruder." 

Whenever she undertook to discredit and in- 
jure anyone the weapons she chose were such that 
should not be used by one who was "as pure as 
the angels," as she boasted of being. 

Mrs. Eddy's vicious charges against her former 
students were as homespun as the ideal Mrs. 
Eddy created by herself and her artists. She 
seemed to have been as soulless as the god she 
postulates. How much warmth of nature she 
possessed, or rather lacked, may well be seen in 
her treatment of her son apart from the revolting 
disclosures given by Mr. Peabody. 

Georgine Milmine gives some of Mrs. Eddy's 
letters in full to her son, George W. Glover. 
These letters show the real character of the 
woman who stands for the Christ to many thou- 
sands of superstitious "Scientists." 

In 1887, when her "College" was paying her 
thousands of dollars a month, she wrote a long 
letter to her son urging him not to come to see 
her, in fact forbidding his intended visit. A few 
lines from this cold-blooded letter must suffice 
here : 

"I am surprised that you think of coming to 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 119 

visit me when I live in a schoolhouse and have no 
room that I can let even a boarder into. Besides 
this, I have all I can meet without receiving com- 
pany. I am going to give up my lease when this 
class is over, and cannot pay your board nor give 
you a single dollar now. You are not what I 
had hoped to find you and I am changed. The 
world, the flesh and evil I am at war with, and 
if anyone comes to me it must be to help me and 
not to hinder me in the warfare. I asked you to 
come to me when my husband died and I so 
much needed someone to help me. You refused 
to come then in my great need, and I gave up 
ever thinking of you in that line. If you come 
after getting this letter I shall feel you have no 
regard for my interests or feelings. 5 ' 1 

Georgine Milmine says: "After Mrs. Eddy 
retired to Pleasant View, neither her son nor his 
family were permitted to visit her, and, when 
they came east, they experienced a good deal of 
difficulty in seeing her at all. Mr. Glover be- 
lieved that his letters to his mother were some- 
times answered by Mr. Frye, and that some of 
his letters never reached her at all. Mr. Glover 
states that he finally sent his mother a letter by 
express, with instructions to the Concord agent 
that it was to be delivered to her in person, and 
to no one else. He was notified that Mrs. Eddy 
could not receive the letter except through her 
secretary, Mr. Frye. 

"January 2nd, 1907, Mr. Glover and his daugh- 

iLife of Mary Baker Eddy, Milmine. 



122 FACTS AND FABLES 

your words so wrongly and then she spells them 
accordingly. I am even yet too proud to have 
you come among my society and, alas, mispro- 
nounce your words as you do/' 1 

This vanity, mistrust and complaint came from 
her while she was "in the mount of higher com- 
munings." She was never known to acknowl- 
edge a fault, but always placed the blame upon 
someone else. This unfairness characterized 
every year of her life. As we have seen from 
her earliest years she malingered or pretended to 
be dying when she was only giving the household 
a scare, to bring them under submission to her 
caprices. She never exhibited the quality of fair- 
ness and genuineness that belongs even to the 
more faulty half of her people. 

Mr. Peabody said of his interview with Geor- 
gine Milmine : "The writer of the series of arti- 
cles in McClure's Magazine on Christian Science 
told me she had heard the criticism that it con- 
tained only the bad things about Mrs. Eddy, and 
she had been asked why she had not incorporated 
such good things as might be said of her. She 
assured me that she had searched the whole of 
Mrs. Eddy's life for a kindly, a generous, an un- 
selfish, a fine womanly deed, and would have been 
only too glad to have recorded it, but had not 
found one — not one such act in the long life of 
more than fourscore years." 

It is the romantic faction of the "Scientists" 

i Life of Mary Baker Eddy, jx. 449, Milmine. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 123 

that interpret Mrs. Eddy and her writings most 
correctly. In the early years of her propaganda, 
when the financial struggle called for all the ad- 
vertising of herself and her mission that ingenu- 
ity could devise, she said extravagant things and 
made romantic claims for advertising effect. 
Later on when the stream of gold flowing her 
way was quite satisfactory she gave more atten- 
tion to the mystical position that she was to hold 
in the minds of her following. 

Words that were written and spoken in the 
interest of business, in the early inception of her 
movement, later became surrounded with the 
halo of spiritual mystery, and the grim sign- 
boards upon which they hung were lost sight of 
by her devotees. 

Even her retirement into seclusion, which kept 
the public from witnessing the ravages of senile 
degeneration, and gave her what peace of mind 
she was able to snatch in hiding from her devil, 
and permitted her to strike decisive and merciless 
blows at those whom she disliked or feared, with 
others assuming the blame and responsibility ; all 
this her followers are blind to, and take with 
reverence the subterfuge given through her Jour- 
nal for her retirement. 

The Christian Science Journal for May, 1889, 
says: 

"As our dear mother in God withdraws herself 
from our midst, and goes up into the mount for 
higher communings, to show us and the genera- 



130 FACTS AND FABLES 

and the entire company filed past and took a last glance 
at the features of Mrs. Eddy. Those who were there said 
that only the slightest change had taken place in the 
appearance of their leader's face in the seven weeks that 
have elapsed since the funeral. 

"Then the panel was slipped back into place and these 
bearers carried the casket to the hearse: Lewis C. Strang, 
William Farlow, the Rev. William P. McKenzie, Thomas 
W. Hatton, James A. Neal, Calvin C. Hill, David N. Me- 
Kee and David B. Ogden, all of Boston. 

"The hearse was then driven to the grave, followed 
by the bearers and about twenty-five men, including S. S. 
Beman of Chicago, Gen. Henry M. Baker, Josiah E. Fer- 
nald and Frank Ladd of Concord, N. H., Calvin A. Frye 
of Newton, the Eev. Irving C. Tomlinson, William A. 
Morse, Alfred Farlow, Frank Waterman and Judge Smith 
of Boston and the directors of the church, Archibald Mc- 
Lellan, Stephen A. Chase, Allison V. Stewart, John W. 
Dittemore and Adam H. Dickey. 

"The grave was large and deep, measuring about eight 
feet square, and must have been from ten to twelve feet 
deep, as a foundation of concrete and crushed stone four 
feet in thickness had been laid, and it was still about 
eight feet to the brink. 

"In the center of the foundation had been left a niche 
just large enough and deep enough to receive the casket, 
and surrounding it and projecting upward were steel 
uprights set in the foundation. 

"Before the casket had been lowered into place a 
copper box of considerable size was placed over the name 
plate. This receptacle contained a quantity of Christian 
Science literature, including copies of everything Mrs. 
Eddy had ever written. 

"Clifford P. Smith, first reader of the Mother Church, 
then read the Ninety-first psalm beginning: 'He that 
dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide 
under the shadow of the Almighty. ' The service was 
completed with the reading of the final verses of Jude. 

"With the pronouncement of the benediction a dozen 
workmen who had been in the vicinity fell upon the piles 
of crushed stone, sand and cement and began mixing 
great quantities. Others took a sheet of steel netting 
and, fitting it to the grave, slipped it down over the steel 
uprights after a layer of concrete had been put over the 
casket. 

"Then about four inches of concrete was spread over 
the netting. Before this was set another thickness of 
steel netting was put into place and then more concrete. 

"This alternating of steel and concrete was continued 
until the grave was filled level with the turf, making a 
practically solid rock beneath, around and above the re- 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 131 

mains of Mrs. Eddy, impervious to moisture and almost 
anything except a pneumatic drill and dynamite. 

"Plans are being prepared for the mausoleum by the 
architect who designed the Lincoln monument at Spring- 
field, 111." 

I purpose to show in this volume that Mrs. 
Eddy was not a woman of faith in God, or a 
woman of prayer. There is nothing but empty 
words in her writings to argue contrary to this 
conclusion. Her history gives no evidence of 
spiritual uplift and Christian faith. 

She retired to Concord from Boston in 1889 
ostensibly to "commune with God" in behalf of 
the human race ; when, in fact, as has been shown 
before, it was to escape from her devil ; to hide her 
senile degeneration, and surround herself with 
a mystery to enslave the minds of her followers. 
She was never open and above board, but always 
scheming for advantages. Never frank and 
genuine, but always designing, elusive and artifi- 
cial. Ponder well the following paragraph from 
Georgine Milmine's complete history of her life to 
1910. * 

"About a month after Mr. Glover's suit was 
withdrawn, Mrs. Eddy purchased, through Rob- 
ert Walker, a Christian Science real estate agent 
in Chicago, the old Lawrence mansion in New- 
ton, a suburb of Boston. The house was en- 
larged and remodeled in great haste and at a cost 
which must almost have equalled the original 
purchase price, $100,000. All the arrangements 
were conducted with secrecy, and very few Chris- 

1 Doubleday, Page Co., N. Y. 



132 FACTS AND FABLES 

tian Scientists knew that it was Mrs. Eddy's in- 
tention to occupy this house until she was there 
in person. 

"On Sunday, January 26th, 1908, at two 
o'clock in the afternoon, Mrs. Eddy, attended by 
nearly a score of her followers, boarded a special 
train at Concord. Extraordinary precautions 
were taken to prevent accidents. A pilot engine 
preceded the locomotive which drew Mrs. Eddy's 
special train, and the train was followed by a 
third engine to prevent the possibility of a rear- 
end collision. Dr. Alpheus B. Morrill, a second 
cousin of Mrs. Eddy and a practising physician 
of Concord, was of her party. Mrs. Eddy's face 
was heavily veiled when she took the train at 
Concord and when she alighted at Chestnut Hill 
station. Her carriage arrived at the Lawrence 
House late in the afternoon, and she was lifted 
out and carried into the house by one of the male 
attendants." 

Why such fear, if she were "as pure as the 
angels," the "voice of God" to this and all future 
ages. If she were all knowing, omni-present, as 
she made her people believe? The answer lies 
simply in the fact that she was "a house divided 
against itself." Her life was builded upon arti- 
ficiality and assumption; upon borrowed philos- 
ophy and character. She was a woman, not of 
peace and poise, but of distrust, fear, unrest and 
hate. 

Her diseased and emaciated body even had to be 
hidden away in the midst of tons upon tons of re- 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 133 

inforced masonry. Above it will be builded a 
monument in the shape of a mausoleum. It 
seems that it would have been more consistent to 
have cremated the remains — which were nothing 
but "error" according to her teachings — and scat- 
tered the residue to the four winds; but that 
would have destroyed the advertising value of 
a shrine to w r hich the faithful will make their pil- 
grimages. During her life she never overlooked 
so important a point in business ; and the manage- 
ment of affairs since her death were selected for 
their obedience and business discretion, and will 
be found directing all the church affairs and poli- 
cies along the same commercial lines that charac- 
terized her life. 

But all this materiality about her fine houses, 
expensive and elaborate churches, her grave, and 
monument above it, are only in keeping with the 
inconsistencies and violent contradictions of her 
muddled attempts to propound a world philos- 
ophy. Ask any Christian Scientist what Mrs. 
Eddy taught, and upon receiving the answer you 
can show that she taught exactly the opposite. 

Macauley, in describing Joanna Southcott, has 
used words that are not out of keeping if applied 
to the prophetess of this day : "We have seen an 
old woman with no talents beyond the cunning 
of a fortune-teller, and with the education of a 
scullion, exalted to a prophetess and surrounded 
by tens of thousands of devoted followers, many 
of whom were, in station and in knowledge, im- 



134 FACTS AND FABLES 

measurably her superiors, and all this in the nine- 
teenth century, and all this in London." 

But since Joanna Southcott was in character 
immeasurably superior to Mrs. Eddy, — one won- 
ders what the nature of Macauley's description 
would be had he had Mrs. Eddy as his subject. 

A few lines from Mark Twain in a letter to 
Mr. Peabody will sum up his estimate of the char- 
acter we are analyzing : 

"I am not combating Xn Science — I haven't a 
thing in the world against it. Making fun of 
that shameless old swindler, Mother Eddy, is the 
only thing about it I take an interest in. At bot- 
tom I suppose I take a private delight in seeing 
the human race making an ass of itself again- — 
which it has always done whenever it has had a 
chance. That's its affair — it has the right and it 
will sweat blood for it a century hence, and for 
many centuries thereafter — 

"See them get down and worship that old crea- 
ture. A century hence they'll all be at it. Sanity in 
the human race? This is really fulsome/' 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE CLAIMS OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE ARE MONU- 
MENTAL. 

In the preceding chapters we have studied a 
brief history of Mrs. Eddy's career with the sole 
view of an aid to the internal study of her writ- 
ings. Since she has made the most extravagant 
claims for her book, "Science and Health," ever 
made for any book, — the Bible not excepted; 
more extravagant than the claims for the Book 
of Mormon, or the Koran of Mahomet; and, 
since her followers believe these claims and are 
rapidly instilling this modern superstition into 
the minds of tens of thousands, it is fitting that 
we bestir ourselves a little and burn some of the 
rich blood of our veins in the gray matter of the 
brain upon this new and revolutionary "revela- 
tion." 

The book for which the highest claims are made 
is "Science and Health, with Key to the Scrip- 
tures," with a hundred pages of advertising mat- 
ter added to it, called "Fruitage," it is now a 
volume of seven hundred pages. It calls itself 
metaphysics, the science of sciences. It is the 
most peculiar book among all the books of litera- 
ture. It is indeed "unique," as one of her fol- 
lowers proudly said. The maddest mad-house 
may be "unique," and usually is. Freaks and ab- 

135 



136 FACTS AND FABLES 

normalities stand out as "unique." We shall try 
to disrobe it of the outer garments which are 
comely and attractive, pull off the adipose tissue 
which has given a pleasing form, and lay bare 
the dry bones of its structure, which are distinct- 
ively its own. We shall give Mrs. Eddy credit 
for all that is her own. And when we have made 
her return "to Caesar" that which she has swept 
in as her own, I believe no claimant will arise 
to contest for the balance. 

She tells us that she was the supreme Oracle 
of God to this age. The Bible needed interpret- 
ing, and she was divinely inspired to give to the 
world this needed interpretation, which she gave 
in the form of a book called "Science and Health, 
with Key to the Scriptures." She says : 

"When God called the author to proclaim the 
Gospel to this age, there came also the charge to 
plant and water his vineyard." "God has been 
graciously fitting me, for many years, for the re- 
ception of a final revelation of the absolute Divine 
Principle of Scientific Mind Healing." * 

"No human pen or tongue taught me the 
Science contained in this book, 'Science and 
Health/ and neither tongue or pen can ever over- 
throw it." (S. and H.) 

"It was not myself that dictated 'Science and 
Health, with Key to the Scriptures/ " (Christian 
Science Journal, 1901.) 

"I should blush to write of 'Science and Health, 
with Key to the Scriptures' as I have were it of 

1 Preface, Science and Health. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 137 

human origin, and I apart from God its author, 
but as I was only a scribe echoing the harmonies 
of heaven in Divine Metaphysics, I can not be 
super-modest in my estimate of the Christian 
Science text book." 

"It was not myself, but the divine power of 
Truth and Love infinitely above me, which dic- 
tated 'Science and Health, with Key to the Scrip- 
tures/ I have been learning the higher meaning 
of this book since writing it." 

"Even the Scriptures gave no direct interpre- 
tation of the Scientific basis for demonstrating 
the spiritual Principle of healing, until our Heav- 
enly Father saw fit, through the 'Key to the Scrip- 
tures/ in 'Science and Health/ to unlock this 
'Mystery of Godliness/ " (Retrospection and In- 
trospection, p. 45.) 

"I was a scribe under orders, and who could 
refrain from transcribing what God indited?" 

"'Science and Health' is the Truth to this 
age." 

"The true Logos is demonstrably Christian 
Science." 

"Outside of this Science all is unstable error." 
(S. and H., p. 202, 1906 ed,) 

"This Science has come already and come 
through the one whom God called." 

These words can not be deflected from their 
real purpose by Mrs. Eddy, which was to instill 
into the minds of her followers that she was the 
voice of God to this age. She does not limit the 
importance of her book, but makes it and her 



138 FACTS AND FABLES 

other writings, with the Bible, the only need of 
the race. We shall show that she considers that 
there is nothing more to be given by inspiration 
from God ; all that the race required was supplied 
when she had done speaking. 

If Mormonism, with its polygamous teachings, 
and its long tentacles reaching along with the 
hands of the greedy trusts to grasp the wealth of 
the land, is offensive to you, I will promise to 
show you a greater menace and a greater offense 
in the Christian Science cult as promulgated by 
the greed and ambition of Mrs. Eddy. Nothing 
is so vicious and dangerous as that form of an- 
archy which says that all the works of men should 
be destroyed. 

What was her attitude toward the tens of thou- 
sands of valuable books recording the history of 
the race; the experiences of mankind, the re- 
searches into the geological history of this earth; 
the painstaking study and classification of the 
teeming plant and animal life upon this planet; 
the work of thousands of laboratories making re- 
search into every avenue of Nature; the study of 
man from every side of his life and experiences? 

To her all this, all the works of men, are but 
a monstrous nightmare, the evil of evils, fit only 
to be destroyed. The great universities and 
schools, the Christian churches that recognize that 
man has a body of flesh, are in her words but 
"dismal cells; slaughter houses of infamy." 

In past years she sent out orders to destroy 
such books and teachings. She has said that all 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 139 

outside of Christian Science, as laid down by her- 
self, "is vague and hypothetical, the opposite of 
Truth. " In her own words, "there is no error 
in Christian Science," it is the pure evangelical 
truth, given first hand to her by God, and can- 
not be had from any other source than from her 
writings. 

The Bible, even, read without her "Key" to 
it, is a false and mischievous teacher. If you in 
reading it recognize that Jesus Christ lived in the 
flesh, that he was incarnate in a physical body; 
that he fed real loaves and fishes to the multi- 
tudes, that he plucked grain from material stalks 
and ate for his needs, that his physical body was 
crucified upon the cross and raised from the tomb 
the third day, the Bible has become to you in 
Mrs. Eddy's teachings a source of evil. Accord- 
ing to her it is not a safe book without her guide, 
since it is full of the errors of men which she was 
divinely guided to destroy. 

It is true that this leader's extremest teachings 
are tempered and modified by the most of her 
followers, for they are capable of a greater de- 
gree of self control and sanity than was she. If 
they lived her teachings for one day our police 
force would have their hands more than full run- 
ning down a frenzied people. She broke faith 
with every established order of man, with the sus- 
taining laws of Nature. 

Any teacher, any leader, who breaks away 
from the works of men and casts them aside as 
evil, and then turns out a ready made system of 



140 FACTS AND FABLES 

his own, and tells you that it is the only and abso- 
lute truth, is to be taken on suspicion. Such ar- 
rogance usually points to a self-seeking, domineer- 
ing and greedy personality. 

The claims of the leader of Christian Science 
were monumental. She claimed to give the abso- 
lute letter of Divine Science. This, even, she 
tells us, was not vouchsafed to Jesus Christ, but 
was alone given to her. He could heal, but did 
not understand fully enough to give the absolute 
teaching. She said that whatever contradicts her 
Science "must be and is false." 

An article entitled "immaculate conception" in 
the Christian Science Journal of November, 1888, 
says: 

"Let us come in thought to another day, a day 
when woman shall commune with God, the eter- 
nal Principle and only Creator, and bring forth 
the spiritual idea. And what of her 'Child' ? Man 
is spiritual, man is mental. Woman was first 
in this day to recognize this and other facts it 
includes. As a result of her communion we have 
Christian Science. 

1 'You may ask why this child did not come in 
human form, as did the child of old. Because 
that was not necessary — as this age is more spir- 
itual than former ages, so the appearance of the 
idea of Truth is more mental." 

In November Journal, 1885, we find the fol- 
lowing boldness : 

"What a triumphant career is this for a 
woman ! Can it be anything less than the taber- 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 141 

nacle of God with men — the fulfillment of the 
vision of the lonely seer on the Isle of Patmos — 
the wonder in heaven ; delivering the child which 
shall rule all nations? How r dare we say to the 
contrary, that she is God — sent to the world as 
much as any character of Sacred Writ?" 

In the Mother church at Boston there is a re- 
splendent window representing the star-crowned 
woman. They have other pictures of Mrs. Eddy, 
hand-in-hand with Jesus, and the artist has cre- 
ated a likeness between them. 

It is because woman is more spiritual than man, 
the Christian Science writers in the Journal ex- 
plain, that a woman perceived the nothingness of 
matter, though Jesus did not, and that she was 
able to interpret the feminine idea of God, which 
is essentially higher than the masculine. Being 
asked what edition of the Bible "Science and 
Health" is based on, the editor of the Journal re- 
plied : 

"Would it not be too material a view to speak 
of 'Science and Health' being based on any edi- 
tion of the Bible ? The Chosen One, always with 
God in the mount, speaks face to face." 

To the Christian Scientists the book "Science 
and Health" is a part of the Scriptures. It is 
even bound in an edition to appear like the Bible. 
To them the two books are inseparable. They 
consider Mrs. Eddy's book the only "key" or 
commentary that is divinely authentic, safe and 
sound, so that when they have her books, period- 



142 FACTS AND FABLES 

icals, and the Bible, they have all that is useful, 
helpful and true. 

In literature Mrs. Eddy is an anarchist. Her 
book is so "unique" that it is out of harmony 
with every other book ever written. Every page 
of her writings is antagonistic to the evidences 
of the senses, and calls for the destruction of all 
the accumulated knowledge of the past, the Bible 
included. All of our sciences are built upon the 
evidences of the senses, — the recognition and otK 
servation of the phenomenal world. All this, to 
Mrs. Eddy, is "error", the devil, that which is to 
be destroyed. 

So much of an anarchist against the ways, laws 
and thoughts of people was Mrs. Eddy that some 
years ago she instructed her loyal students to 
burn other literature than her own writings. 
Some revolted against such an order and received 
persecution for their independence. Even the 
Bible was not to be read by beginning students. 
They were admonished to "Let the Bible alone 
for three months or more. Don't open it even, 
nor think of it, but dig night and day at 'Science 
and Health/ " 

She always gave the Bible as her authority and 
used it without question of leave in her own be- 
half. The Journal of October, 1888, says: "Stu- 
dents will do well to bear in mind the Master's 
warning : 'Except ye be converted and become as 
little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of 
Heaven.' This Scripture means practically to 
each individual today all that it implies in its rela- 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 143 

tive bearing toward the Truth as Divine Science, 
and toward its rightful discoverer." 

I wish you to take a serious look with me into 
her "philosophy" and see what would be the con- 
dition of the world under her "unique" system. 
First, let us get clear what she claimed for her 
book. 

She claimed to be the special representative of 
God to this benighted age; to blot out the dark 
"error" of a belief in a material world; to prove 
that what we see, hear, feel, taste and smell is 
but one monstrous dream and nightmare. This is 
her "great discovery;" this is her "immaculate 
conception," the birth of the "great Idea," and it 
is to be found cradled between the covers of her 
book, "Science and Health." She tells us that 
this was a "portentious birth," one that caused her 
great "travail." We saw some of this "travail" 
in following her through the period of its birth 
from the time she first began to sell copies of 
Ouimby's manuscript at three hundred dollars; 
her struggles to get students at that price to do 
the work of healing by Ouimby's methods, which 
she herself was never able to do; the disruption 
which followed with every person with whom 
she had close dealings ; finally her opportunity to 
discount Quimby and make a "revelation" of the 
healing system all her own, at the cost of com- 
mon honesty and decency. 

She says that "when God called the author to 
proclaim his Gospel to this age, there came also 
the charge to plant and water his vineyard." She 



144 FACTS AND FABLES 

tells us that "God had been graciously fitting me, 
during many years, for the reception of a final 
revelation of the absolute Divine Principle of 
Scientific Mind-healing." This must have been 
about the time that Dr. Patterson, her second 
husband, was hiring boys by the hour to rock her 
in the big cradle, or swing, while he was out put- 
ting sawdust on the road to deaden the sound of 
vehicles passing the house ; or out killing frogs in 
the nearby pond because they disturbed her spir- 
itual senses, which were being refined and attuned 
to catch the "divine metaphysics" which was 
later to be sent from the mind of the Infinite. 

Christian Scientists have complained that 
critics have misrepresented Mrs. Eddy and her 
writings by quoting disconnected passages from 
her books without giving due credit to their con- 
text. Such passages as the following are com- 
plete within themselves and were meant to convey 
just what they say. In fact the best context is 
the simple fact that the loyal Scientists under- 
stand them in their full romantic sense : "It was 
not myself which dictated 'Science and Health/ " 
"No human tongue or pen taught me the science 
contained in this book," and "I should blush to 
write of 'Science and Health' as I have, were it of 
human origin." "It was not myself but the divine 
power of Truth and Love infinitely above me that 
dictated 'Science and Health.' I have been learn- 
ing the higher meaning of this book since writ- 
ing it." "I was a scribe under orders, and who 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 145 

could refrain from transcribing what God in- 
dited." 

Confront a "scientist" with such "romantic" 
statements and he may use their would-be lofty 
attitude, namely: "If your spiritual senses were 
sufficiently elevated, all these things would be- 
come plain to your spiritual understanding, and 
Mrs. Eddy's writings would contain no contra- 
dictions, false claims, or incongruities." Put a 
little ballast of logic into this airy ballooning, thus 
stripping it of its flighty claims, and what you 
have left is this: "Believe what you can con- 
veniently believe, and inhibit the mind from try- 
ing to think or reason about that which seems 
senseless, contradictory or untrue." 

Now, my dear reader, if you can exercise the 
power of inhibition over the reasoning faculties 
left as your greatest heritage from your long line 
of progenitors, why then, you can attain to this 
"understanding" and become a loyal "scientist." 

In order to assist you in this self-hypnotism, 
Mrs. Eddy has made the way easier by laying 
down the premise of divine guidance; thus infal- 
libility. If you can down this premise the rest 
follows smoothly, as the mind reasons, "who am 
I that I should question the dictations of God?" 
Then she tells you that she has also been "learn- 
ing the higher meaning" of what she received 
since transcribing it. That acts as a balm to the 
first shock received at the amputation of a sec- 
tion of your customary reasoning. If she, "God's 
chosen Oracle to this age," whom he "had been 



146 FACTS AND FABLES 

graciously fitting, during many years, for the re- 
ception of a final revelation," sat as a learner be- 
fore the "little book" seen by St. John in his 
vision on the isle of Patmos, why not you? 

It is easy, if you will only submit to sufficient 
amputation. If you are a soldier of the Russian 
army you are not liable to become disturbed very 
deeply over the struggle for freedom of thought 
and speech, since the powers above you gener- 
ously put the black blot upon every article that 
in any sense spells independence. Their mental 
diet is kept wholesome — for the Royalty. If 
you can, habitually, put the black blot upon that 
part of your mind which has been accustomed to 
question, observe, and reason, you may feed upon 
a wholesome mental diet in her writings, — whole- 
some for her ambition. If you do not put the 
blot there, you are against her, and that means 
that you are lost in outer darkness, for she says : 
"Whatever contradicts Divine Science must be 
and is false," for "there is no error in Christian 
Science," and "outside of Christian Science all 
is vague and hypothetical, the opposite of Truth," 
and "the material man is shut out by Divine 
Science from the presence of God." 

When you have become able to successfully 
exercise this surgery or censorship upon your- 
self, then you will "understand" that "Christian 
Science is the pure evangelical Truth," "the only 
sure basis of Harmony," "the prism of truth 
which divides its rays and brings out the hues 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 147 

of Deity/' and that "Outside of this Science all 
is unstable error." 

Now this amputation will cost you something, 
as it did Mrs. Eddy, for she tells us that "No one 
else can drink the cup which I have drunk to the 
dregs, as the discoverer and teacher of Chris- 
tian Science. Neither can its inspiration be gained 
without tasting this cup." Again she said in her 
biography that her former learning (which never 
existed) "vanished like a dream" when she got 
the understanding of Science. 

According to Mrs. Eddy's estimation, this 
book, "Science and Health," is absolutely indis- 
pensable. The Bible has but a minor value with- 
out its aid, for she says: "Even the Scriptures 
gave no direct interpretation of the scientific 
basis for demonstrating the spiritual Principle 
of healing, until Our Heavenly Father saw fit, 
through the 'Key to the Scriptures' in 'Science 
and Health,' to unlock this mystery of Godliness." 

God waited a long time to give to a needy 
world a "Key" which would unlock the "mys- 
tery of Godliness" held within the covers of the 
Bible. Now Jesus did not get far enough in this 
"Principle", for she tells us that, "Our Master 
healed the sick, practiced Christian healing and 
taught the generalities of its divine Principle to 
his students, but he left no definite rule for 
demonstrating his Principle of healing and pre- 
venting disease. This remained to be discovered 
through Christian Science. . . . God is the 
Principle of Christian Science. As there is but 



148 FACTS AND FABLES 

one God, there can be but one divine Principle of 
all science, and there must be fixed rules for the 
demonstration of this divine Principle. ,, 

The only source from which this can be had is 
Mrs. Eddy's book, as it is the "key" to the Scrip- 
tures. With this new understanding we see that 
the Bible alone is not a sufficient guide for man 
in his effort to know his God, and to get on well 
in this life. We may even come to the "under- 
standing" that Jesus w r as little more than a fore- 
runner of Mrs. Eddy, as John the Baptist was of 
Jesus. In this matter she is very explicit, for she 
shows to us that more could not be expected of 
Jesus since he was not the right sex, and repre- 
sented the weaker side of the Godhead. 

Mrs. Eddy herself has given us the pedigree 
and identity of her book. We will come to "un- 
derstand" that it emanates from only the highest 
source. We recall that Jesus said that it was ex- 
pedient that He go away, for if He went the Com- 
forter would come and it would guide into all 
truth. Now it would not do for Mrs. Eddy to 
leave such an opening as this for annexation by 
some ambitious opportunist. She therefore an- 
nexed it herself. She says: 

"The Holy Ghost is Divine Science" * — and, 
speaking of Pentecost, she says : "That heretofore 
they had only believed; now they understood. 
The advent of this understanding is what is meant 
by the descent of the Holy Ghost, that influx of 
Divine Science which so illumined the Pente- 

1 Glossary to S. & H. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 149 

costal day and is now repeating its ancient his- 
tory." (S. & H., p. 43, 1909.) 

"His students then received the Holy Ghost. 
By this is meant that by all they had witnessed 
and suffered, they were aroused to an enlarged 
understanding of Divine Science." (S. & H., p. 
46, 1909.) 

She says again : "In the words of St. John : 'He 
shall give you another Comforter that he may 
abide with you forever/ This Comforter I un- 
derstand to be Divine Science." (S. & H., p. 55, 
1909 ed.) 

This last quotation does not occur in the earlier 
editions of her book but is to be found as the last 
words of the chapter "Atonement" in the latest 
editions, so that it is not the result of her earlier 
enthusiasm, but was her claim to the last. In 
fact her boldest and most ambitious utterances 
are of later years, and seemed to have increased 
with the growth of her wealth and following. 

She says: "And John saw in those days the 
spiritual idea as the Messiah, who would baptize 
with the Holy Ghost — Divine Science." l 

To the "Scientists who follow their leader's 
fullest claims, the Christ has come again, and all 
prophesy of Him has been fulfilled in the com- 
ing of the book "Science and Health." 

I hear some of you say : Her followers surely 
do not believe that she was sent into the world 
the same and on a par with our Lord ? I answer 
this by saying that I shall show that her followers 

i 8. & H., p. 562, 1909. 



150 FACTS AND FABLES 

place her on the same plane with Jesus, and that 
she has ingeniously argued her position and mis- 
sion as higher than His. As we shall see she has 
taken all liberty and authority to handle the 
Bible as she pleased. 

I do not believe that thinking people should 
lightly condone the trailing of Divine Missions in 
the dust, and making merchandise of inspiration. 

It must be clearly understood that Mrs. Eddy 
did not teach that Jesus was the Christ. She 
limited His knowledge and specifically taught that 
He did not teach mankind a complete system of 
religion. That was left for her to receive direct 
from God. To Mrs. Eddy, Christ is an abstrac- 
tion, a principle, not a person. He was "Truth,' 1 
not Jesus. Now the geometrical proposition that 
a straight line is the shortest distance between 
two points is a truth. It is a cold, lifeless truth, 
just as the Christ of Mrs. Eddy's "Christian 
Science" is cold and lifeless. What a wide and 
vital difference there is between the cold, geomet- 
rical principle, and the great, loving, feeling soul 
of Jesus of Gethsemane and the cross ! 

Jesus in "Christian Science" was a way-shower, 
not a complete and all sufficing Savior. He was 
full of error, had not risen high enough in the 
understanding of Christian Science to be above 
a belief in matter. From such premises, is it any 
wonder that Mrs. Eddy did not blush to shove 
him aside, to build upon his works, and to bring 
herself into the place of prominence in the minds 
of her following? 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 151 

She did away with the Lord's supper and in- 
stituted a breakfast instead. This sacrament was 
in her way. It is a memorial of Jesus. She was 
not interested in Jesus, but in the Christ, the ab- 
straction which she calls "Truth." She was jeal- 
ous of Jesus and would not permit His sacrament, 
in remembrance of Him. She brushed it aside 
and instituted a breakfast, which in no wise per- 
tains to Jesus, but in effect to herself. This is 
because she claims that the second coming of 
Christ, "Truth," is fulfilled for all time in her 
book "Science and Health." Jesus did not pro- 
duce the book, which is the Comforter, thus He 
is out of the higher advent as she claims it to be. 
Thus, logically, since she was its author, and or- 
dained it as the only pastor on this planet, the 
breakfast of "Christian Science" points to her 
and not to Jesus. 

The individual "Scientists" may deny this, but 
don't place too much credence upon what they 
say about Mrs. Eddy's teachings, because few of 
them can apply logical analysis to her writings; 
and again, it must be remembered that their chief 
mental activity is denial. 

When Mrs. Eddy died some months ago the 
romantic faction of her followers speculated up- 
on her appearing again as Jesus did. They be- 
lieve that she will come again, and that she — not 
Jesus — will rule the w T orld. This is quite in keep- 
ing with her teachings, that she was vouchsafed 
the final revelation which she said w r as higher 
than had been given by Jesus or any prophet. 



152 FACTS AND FABLES 

She has put her brand upon the whole of the 
twelfth chapter of Revelation. Her own words 
say: "The twelfth chapter of Revelation has a 
special suggestiveness in connection with the 
Nineteenth century — the distinctive feature has 
reference to the present age." By the distinctive 
feature she means the vision that John, on Pat- 
mos, had, which she describes in these words : 

"And there appeared a great wonder in 
Heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the 
moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown 
of twelve stars." * 

Anyone who will read the chapter "Apoca- 
lypse" in her book "Science and Health" with or- 
dinary discrimination will see that she clearly 
teaches that St. John had reference to her. Her 
followers who have studied her works closely all 
acknowledge this "woman clothed with the sun" 
to be Mrs. Eddy. 

John had another vision which she gives: 
"And I saw another mighty angel come down 
from heaven, clothed with a cloud : and a rainbow 
was upon his head, and his face was as it were 
the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire : and he had 
in his hand a little book open : and he set his right 
foot upon the sea and his left foot on the 
earth." 2 

Commenting upon John's vision she says : "This 
angel or message which comes from God, clothed 
with a cloud, prefigures Divine Science. It brings 

i S. & H., p. 560. 
2S.& H., p. 558. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 153 

the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Mortals obey the 
heavenly evangel. Take Divine Science. Read 
this book from beginning to end." 1 And much 
more of the same character could be quoted. 

I hear some of you say that this is blasphemous 
egotism. There are but few of you who have 
not friends or relatives who believe all this, or as 
"Christian Scientists" will believe it as soon as 
they discover that their leader expected them to 
believe it. It may be, to some, physiologically 
helpful; but it is, certainly, intellectually disas- 
trous. 

The above we think was quite bold, but she al- 
ways has another and greater surprise for us. 
In business she was always a sharp, astute 
schemer, the best bookseller the world ever saw, 
as I shall make clear. In her schemes she never 
failed to provide for an influx of gold into her 
coffers. But her ambitions took in more than 
money. She seemed to envy Jesus Christ His 
place in the hearts of men, and subtly and in- 
geniously laid her plans to compete for the place 
of worship. 

I will ask you to labor with me a little while 
here while we follow this subtle trail of self- 
exaltation, which her students follow with bated 
breath, or, as Nicodemus, under cover of secrecy. 
Every step we take along this trail will be upon 
words of her own. 

The crowning event of her book is to be found 
in the chapter "Apocalypse," the last chapter of 

ilbid, p. 552. 



154 FACTS AND FABLES 

which gives her spiritual interpretation of the 
Book of Revelation, which she says is the "acme 
of Christian Science." She tells us that to her 
spiritual sense the Book of Revelation is trans- 
parent. 

John saw many things that have mystified us. 
Mrs. Eddy has cleared the atmosphere for us by 
revealing the identity of the "woman clothed with 
the sun," also of the open book in the hand of 
the mighty angel. She quotes from Revelation : 
,"And there appeared another wonder in Heaven ; 
and behold a great red dragon, having seven 
heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his 
heads" .... "and the dragon stood before 
the woman which was ready to be delivered, for 
to devour her child as soon as it was born" . . 
. . "And there was war in heaven .... 
and the great dragon was cast out, that old ser- 
pent, called the devil, and Satan : he was cast out 
into the earth, and his angels were cast out with 
him." .... "and when the dragon saw that 
he was cast into the earth, he persecuted the 
woman which brought forth the man child" . . 
. . "and the serpent cast out of his mouth water 
as a flood, after the woman, that he might cause 
her to be carried away of the flood. And the 
earth helped the woman, and the earth opened her 
mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the 
dragon cast out of his mouth." "And her child 
was caught up unto God, and to his throne." * 

Her spiritual interpretation in her own words 

iS. &H., p. 562. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 155 

is that, "this dragon stands for the sum total of 
human error. It symbolizes a lie; the belief that 
substance, life, and intelligence can be material" l 
. . . . "The Revelator sees that the old ser- 
pent, whose name is devil, or evil, holding un- 
tiring watch, that he might bite the heel of Truth 
and seemingly impede the offspring of the spir- 
itual idea." .... "In Genesis, this allegorical, 
talking serpent typifies Mortal Mind, more subtle 
than any beast of the field. In the Apocalypse, 
when nearing its doom, this evil increases and 
becomes the great red dragon, swollen with sin, 
inflamed with war against spirituality, and ripe 
for destruction." 

To sum up : The great red dragon is the devil ; 
and Mrs. Eddy's spiritual definition for devil is 
belief in matter, sin, sickness and death. Now 
what was the child that the woman was to give 
birth to? It was the "spiritual idea" or "message 
to this age". She quotes St. John, who says : 

"And she being with child, cried travailing in 
birth and pain to be delivered." Her only com- 
ment and interpretation are these words: "Also 
the spiritual idea is typified by a woman in travail, 
waiting to be delivered of her sweet promise, but 
remembering no more her sorrow for joy that the 
birth goes on ; for great is the idea, and the tra- 
vail portentious." 2 

The "Spiritual Idea" which the dragon sought 
to devour is "Christian Science" .... the 

i S. & H., Apocalypse. 
2 Ibid, Apocalypse. 



156 FACTS AND FABLES 

teachings of the book the mighty angel held in 
his hand .... "Science and Health, with 
Key to the Scriptures/' 

Quoting her words she says: "The twelfth 
chapter of the Apocalypse typifies the divine 
method of warfare in Science." "Ever since the 
foundation of the world, ever since error would 
establish material belief, evil has tried to slay the 
Lamb ; but Science is able to destroy this lie called 
evil" .... "From the beginning to the end, 
the serpent pursues with hatred the spiritual 'idea' 
. . . . In this age the earth will help the 
woman ; the spiritual idea will be understood." 1 

She reminds us that John saw more. She 
quotes his words : "And there came unto me one 
of the seven angels which had the seven vials 
full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me 
saying, Come hither, I will show you the bride, 
the Lamb's wife." This part of the trail runs quite 
straight and is easily followed, and I will strew 
it with her own words in revealing to us who or 
what the bride, the Lamb's wife, is. She says: 

"Come hither. Arise from your false con- 
sciousness into the true sense of Love, and be- 
hold the Lamb's wife, Love wedded to its own 
spiritual idea. Then cometh the marriage feast, 
for the revelation will destroy forever the phys- 
ical plagues imposed by material sense." 2 

Mrs. Eddy was fond of Scriptural mysticisms 
and never failed to make them score for herself. 

* S. & H., Apocalypse. 
2 S. & H., Apocalypse. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 157 

While she forbids her people to prophesy and 
speculate, the last quoted paragraph was designed 
to make them speculate about her. Already the 
"Scientists" couple the word "Love," always 
printed in capitals, with Mrs. Eddy. Her words 
would imply the marriage or union of her writ- 
ings with Christ — or Truth, as she calls him. 

She next takes John's vision of the New Jerusa- 
lem and before she is through with this round-up 
she has put the C. S. brand upon the whole celes- 
tial city. We might expect this, since it is re- 
puted that the streets of the city are paved with 
gold. She tells that "this sacred city represents 
the light and glory of Christian Science." 1 

Quoting her own words, please note the para- 
lellism to the life of Jesus Christ : "Northward 
its gates open to the North star, the Bible . . . 
the Polar magnet of Revelation ; eastward to the 
star seen by the Wise Men of the Orient, who 
followed it to the manger of Jesus; southward to 
the genial tropics ; westward to the grand realiza- 
tion of the Golden shore of Love and the peaceful 
sea of Harmony." 2 

She here calls your attention to the birthplace 
of Jesus, and by the westward gate to the birth- 
place of "Christian Science," which she desig- 
nates the "spiritual idea." 

Thus we have it, that the bride, the Lamb's 
wife, the New Jerusalem, that John beheld in his 
vision, is Divine Science, which Mrs. Eddy calls 

i S. & H., Apocalypse, 
a Ibid. 



158 FACTS AND FABLES 

her sacred discovery and gives the absolute let- 
ter of in her book "Science and Health." She 
describes the gates of the city as pointing one to 
the south, one to the north, one to the east to- 
ward Bethlehem, and the fourth to the west to- 
ward Boston and vicinity, where she received 
God's dictation of "Science and Health." 

Now, for a way, our trail is not so easy to fol- 
low and it leads through a tangled jungle, but 
all trails have a purpose and lead to some object- 
ive point or place. 

Anyone becoming familiar with Mrs. Eddy's 
writings observes a studied effort on her part to 
create a parallel everywhere between herself and 
Jesus. This is insinuated upon the reader at 
every turn. She never loses the opportunity to 
cast about herself a sacred mystery. Almost the 
opening words of her autobiography tell of the 
Lord calling her by name three times at intervals 
covering a period of twelve months. Finally she 
told this to her mother, who read to her the story 
of the Lord calling Samuel, and told her to reply 
in the words of Samuel, "Speak, Lord, for thy 
servant heareth", which she says she did when 
the voice called again. 

In the same book she relates how she disputed 
with the elders of the church at the age of twelve, 
— the age at which Jesus argued with the Doctors 
in the temple. But in order to make the age the 
same she had to falsify five years : for the church 
records show that she was seventeen, the date 
being 1838, when she joined the Tilton Congrega- 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 159 

tional church by profession. She was born in 
1821. 

To study her parallelism between herself and 
Jesus we will have to look for a moment at her 
treatment of the Trinity, the Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost. She has disposed of the Holy 
Ghost for us by telling us that it is "Divine 
Science." To leave herself in the race for posi- 
tion of divine importance it has become neces- 
sary for her to do some fixing of the Trinity, 
which she has done in a unique way. This is a 
day in which the women are coming to the front 
and she has not been modest in her claims for her 
sex. 

Now she has fixed the Trinity for us in this 
wise, giving her own words: "Life, Truth and 
Love constitute Deity/' "Christian Science 
clearly interprets God as Divine Principle, — as 
Life represented by the Father, as Truth repre- 
sented by the Son, as Love represented by the 
Mother/' * 

"As Elias presented the idea of the Fatherhood 
of God, which Jesus afterwards manifested, so 
the Revelator completed this figure with woman 
typifying the spiritual idea of God's Mother- 
hood" 

She tells us that Jesus was the masculine repre- 
sentative of the spiritual idea. Quoting her own 
words : "This immaculate idea, represented first 
by man and, according to the Revelator, last by 

1 S. & H., Apocalypse. 



160 FACTS AND FABLES 

woman, will baptize with fire." * Which means 
with her "Science." 

Now, this spiritual idea is the great idea that 
the dragon tried to devour; that woman must 
give birth to; that was contained in its absolute 
form in the book held in the mighty angel's hand ; 
its last and final birth being in the Nineteenth 
century, in the vicinity of Boston, toward which 
the fourth gate of the New Jerusalem opened. 

We see, therefore, that she has put Mother as 
well as Father into the Trinity — thus her author- 
ity for putting the words Father-Mother God 
into the Lord's Prayer. Her Trinity is Life, 
Truth, and Love. Love or Mother holds a very 
high place in the Trinity; how high we shall 
shortly see from her words. She very frequently 
uses the words Truth and Love together, always 
with capital letters. She says : 

"The ideal man corresponds to intelligence and 
to Truth." "The ideal woman corresponds to 
Life and to Love. In Divine Science we have 
not as much authority for considering God mas- 
culine as we have for considering him feminine, 
for Love imparts the clearest idea of Deity." 
"This enabled woman to be the first to interpret 
the Scriptures in their true sense." "Gender is 
also a quality of mind, not of matter." 

"God determines the gender of His own ideas. 
The divine mind names the female gender last, 
because femininity is highest in the ascending or- 

i Ibid. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 161 

der of creation." "The Revelator saw also the 
spiritual ideal as a woman clothed in light." 

Upon such reasoning she has taken the liberty 
to change the twenty-third Psalm to read: "Di- 
vine Love is my shepherd ; I shall not want. Love 
maketh me to lie down in green pastures ; Love 
leadeth me beside the still waters," etc., through- 
out the Psalm. Here she takes the leading away 
from the Lord, giving herself a place as the femi- 
nine representative of the Trinity. 

Now let us briefly summarize again and see 
what we have : 

The woman clothed with the sun was John's 
vision of Mrs. Eddy. The travail described was 
the birth of "Christian Science," "Science and 
Health." The dragon is all those outside the 
"Christian Science" cult. The bride, the New 
Jerusalem, is "Christian Science." The only 
authorized source of Truth is the book "Science 
and Health." The Trinity consists of the 
Father, Christ, and the Mother; Life, Truth, and 
Love. Jesus was the masculine representative, on 
earth, of Truth. But since the feminine side of 
the Trinity is the highest, it was only logical that 
if God had a higher message to impart to the 
nineteenth century than the message given 
through Jesus, — which Mrs. Eddy informs us 
was the case, — that he would impart that mes- 
sage through a higher medium. Mrs. Eddy 
was the earthly representative of Love, the high- 
est part of the Trinity. Of her message she speaks 



162 FACTS AND FABLES 

in this wise: "A louder song, sweeter than has 
ever reached high Heaven, now rises clearer and 
nearer the great heart of Christ, and Love sends 
forth her primal and everlasting strain." * 

I wish to give these words from her autobiog- 
raphy ; note the parallelism : "No person can take 
the individual place of the Virgin Mary. No per- 
son can compass or fulfill the individual mission 
of Jesus of Nazareth. No person can take the 
place of the author of Science and Health, the 
discoverer and founder of Christian Science. 
Each must fill his own niche in time and eternity." 

"The second appearing of Chirst is unquestion- 
ably the spiritual advent of the advancing idea of 
God as in 'Christian Science.' " 2 

Speaking further upon the point of the second 
coming, she says: "John the Baptist prophesied 
the coming of the immaculate Jesus, and John 
(the revelator) saw in those days the spiritual 
idea as the Messiah, — and completed this figure 
with woman, typifying the spiritual idea of God's 
Motherhood." 3 

We have it, then, that in the mission and works 
of Mrs. Eddy, that all prophecy has been fulfilled 
and God has finished speaking to this earth 
through special messengers, unless it be as the 
more romantic faction of her followers believe, 
that she will return and rule the earth. There 
are those "Christian Scientists" who believe that 

i S. & H., Apocalypse. 

2 Betrospection and Introspection, p. 86. 

3 S. & H., Apocalypse. 






OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 163 

their leader will appear again as Jesus did, though 
they have taken the safer side and admit that it 
may not be short of twenty years or so. 

All of Mrs. Eddy's movements, since her work 
became a financial success and her following be- 
came large, have been with the view to becoming 
worshipped. Has she succeeded in this deep laid 
plan? In greater measure than you dream of — 
or would think possible in this age ! And how do 
they compare her with Jesus? Just as she com- 
pared herself — greater. Now this is the spectacle 
we have in this day. 

She has thus imposed upon us the duty of mak- 
ing some comparisons ourselves, that the unwary 
might know whither they are drifting, for, once 
"dyed in the wool" with this idolatry, the mind 
becomes shut to facts and reason. 

With each revision of "Science and Health" 
there has been a progressiveness toward mini- 
mizing the office and divinity of Jesus, and rais- 
ing the office and divinity of "Truth" — called 
Christ in "Christian Science." There was an ob- 
ject in this. If Jesus could be pushed aside and 
left in the background as one whose work was 
in the nature of a forerunner or prophet of the 
greater to come, and Christ was divorced from 
Him and made into the abstraction "Truth," then 
Mrs. Eddy could bring herself into prominence 
and overshadow Jesus as the last and final voice 
of Christ ("Truth"). 

Let us make a brief comparison between 
phrases in the 1891 edition of "Science and 



164 FACTS AND FABLES 

Health/' and the editions of 1909, eighteen years 
later. The old edition says: "Jesus Christ was 
the son of God." In the late editions Mrs. Eddy 
has changed the sentence to read : "Jesus was born 
of Mary. . . . The corporeal man Jesus was 
human. . . . Christ is the true idea voicing 
good, the divine message from God to man speak- 
ing to the human consciousness." Page 332, 
1909 ed. S. & H. 

Another sentence in the 1891 edition reads: 
"Jesus was the son of Mary. . . . He ex- 
pressed the highest type which a fleshly form 
could express of manhood." In the 1909 edition 
the sentences are changed to read : "Jesus was 

the son of a virgin He expressed the 

highest type of divinity which a fleshly form 
could express in that age." Page 332, 1909 ed. 
The change of the words "could express of man- 
hood" to "could express in that age," meant 
nothing less than that Jesus expressed divinity 
imperfectly because of the age in which He lived ; 
and that the highest and final expression of God 
was in this age through Mrs. Eddy. Couple with 
this her argument that the "Comforter that was 
to lead into all truth" "must be borne of woman" ; 
that femininity is the highest part of the Trinity: 
that Jesus was the masculine representative of 
the lesser part of the Trinity; that Mrs. Eddy 
was the feminine representative of the supreme 
part of the Trinity; that to Jesus was vouchsafed 
only a part of the "Truth" ; that He could heal 
but could not give the absolute teachings of God, 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 165 

we begin to see something of the purpose of Mrs. 
Eddy to minimize the importance of Jesus and 
overshadow Him with her own. The proof of 
my interpretation of her w r ords and designs is to 
be found in the fact that many thousands of her 
followers have their eyes fixed upon her instead 
of upon Jesus Christ. This is also why she did 
away with all the sacraments enjoined by Jesus. 
She would not permit them in remembrance of 
Him. If she had permitted the sacraments in 
commemoration of Jesus she could not have 
usurped His place in the minds of her followers. 

Another comparison will further illustrate 
Mrs. Eddy's design to outstrip Jesus in matters 
of divine favor. In the 1891 edition we read 
these words : "Christ is not a name so much as a 
title, and belongs to our Master exclusively." In 
the 1909 edition — the latest revision, p. 472 — the 
sentence reads : "Christ is not a name so much as 
a divine title of Jesus." 

Had Mrs. Eddy permitted Jesus to be the 
Christ, she would have had to be content with a 
place of secondary importance. In later years, 
when her power, influence and wealth had be- 
come so great as to make her bold, she repented 
of many of her expressions which gave first place 
to Jesus, and corrected them in later editions. 
Thus we find that she would not have her early 
statement stand that the title Christ "belongs to 
our Master exclusively". She found the state- 
ment in her way. 

She says that Jesus "was not one with the 



166 FACTS AND FABLES 

Father", "but the divine idea or Christ was." 
Jesus disappeared at the ascension, was anni- 
hilated, while "Christ continues to exist in the 
eternal order of Divine Science" (Christian 
Science). 

She quotes Rev. I- 17-18: " 1 am the first and 
the last: I am he that liveth and was dead (not 
understood) ; and, behold, I am alive for ever- 
more (Science has explained me) M ' This is how 
Christian Scientists read the Bible. Mrs. Eddy 
has put her C. S. brand upon Genesis, the life of 
Christ, and what seemed to her worth while in 
Revelation, She has seen to it that Jesus no 
longer stands in her way. Her followers can 
now see her as the most exalted figure that ever 
loomed upon the horizon of human history. She 
fixed it so that all prophecy of the past was ful- 
filled in her. Through the doctrine of the omni- 
presence of her mind while here, she has left 
them room for romantic speculation as to the 
continuance of her omnipresence since she has 
passed on. This is a nugget that the Board of Di- 
rectors will not lightly surrender, but will, no 
doubt, make to work overtime, since "there are 
millions in it" 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE COMMERCIALIZATION OF A "REVELATION." 

In the preceding chapter we saw with what 
boldness, and want of shame, Mary Baker Eddy 
has supplied herself from the Bible, the Book 
that has, indeed, been the Light of the world 
these many centuries. Her greed for money and 
power is monumental. She seems to have had 
no consideration for the comfort and happiness 
of others when seeking her own ends. In making 
a brief study of her financial methods we will 
have to delve in the mire of her conduct. Since 
the book "Science and Health, " the "Scientists' ' 
key to knowledge, and the only source of salva- 
tion — the Comforter, the Christ come again, the 
Bride, the Lamb's wife, The New Jerusalem, is 
more of an autobiography than anything else, it 
cannot be understood in the absence of a fuller 
insight into the character that produced it. Nor 
can the present management of all the "Scien- 
tists" be understood without a full knowledge of 
the business school in which they received their 
training. 

Let me revive a scene in your mind that has 
in it the true spirit of Jesus. Peter and John 
were entering the temple to pray, when a cripple, 
lame from his birth, besought them for alms. 

167 



168 FACTS AND FABLES 

There was only one among the twelve disciples 
who made merchandise of the Master's loving 
spirit, so that Peter and John were without gold 
to give to this poor cripple. But in these words, 
that have in them the sweet harmonies of love, 
Peter replied : "Silver and gold have I none, but 
such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus 
Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." 

Peter healed the cripple's body and soul and 
would have shared his coins with him had he 
had any. He had been for three years under the 
tuition of One who made no charge for healing 
the body and the sick soul. As freely as these 
disciples had imbibed this spirit of service did 
they give in utter self forget fulness. 

Contrast this with the commercialism of 
"Christian Science." Throughout the country 
are thousands of healers, making merchandise 
out of what they deem is baptizing with the Holy 
Ghost. But these are not so much to blame as 
they have come up under the tuition of a leader 
who had no faith in God, but all faith in money. 
I have met many of these healers and found 
their lives and character more consistent and 
superior to the life and character of their leader. 

Since they take it that all that she did was 
right, and as she set the example of turning the 
Gospel to account for the ledger, and her ledger 
shows several millions of dollars as her gain, we 
need not wonder if many of her healers "in 
preaching the Gospel," as she calls their work, 
should have acquired "comfortable fortunes," as 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 169 

she vainly boasted of their doing, while "healing 
mankind physically, morally and spiritually. ,, 

Some of you will wonder how Mrs. Eddy 
could have made millions of dollars, most of it 
in the past twenty years. Plenty of slaves to do 
the work and war prices make a productive com- 
mercial proposition, especially when the zealots 
are fired with superstition and goaded to their 
work through fear. 

Her millions were made through the sale of 
her publications, mainly the book "Science and 
Health." No other book has had such a sale — 
at such high prices — in the history of booksell- 
ing. Let us seek the cause. 

She claims that the book "Science and Health" 
is the only way to salvation, being the message 
of God to this age to open the riches of the 
Scriptures. She says: "Deific power cannot be 
apprehended (understood) until divine science 
becomes the interpreter.' ' "The spirit and the 
Bride say come ; and whosoever will, let him take 
the water of life freely. Christian Science sep- 
arates error from truth and breathes through the 
sacred pages the scriptural sense of life/* 

"In 1895 I ordained the Bible and Science and 
Health with key to the Scriptures, the Christian 
Science Text Book as the pastor on this planet, of 
all the churches of the Christian Science denomi- 
nation. Whenever and wherever a church of. 
Christian Science is established, its pastor is the 
Bible and my book." 1 

1 Miscellaneous Writings, p. 188. 



170 FACTS AND FABLES 

According to Mrs. Eddy, all of you good 
preachers are but pretenders, and in truth more 
closely related to the great red dragon than to 
the Master. The churches in which you minister 
do not comply with the conditions that place them 
within the sphere of God's recognition. Accord- 
ing to her your prayers reach only deaf ears. 
She says: "God is ignorant of both mortal mind 
and its claims." Her spiritual definition of 
church is the institution that combats the belief 
in matter and teaches and demonstrates Christian 
Science. 

Since all outside of Christian Science is error, 
and error is mortal mind, and mortal mind is the 
devil, other churches therein have their identifica- 
tion and "God is ignorant of their existence. ,, 

So the book "Science and Health'' is the only 
divinely ordained pastor on this planet. It is the 
baptism of the Holy Ghost; it is the Christ come 
again. Thus, being the only way to salvation, 
the fulfillment of the injunction to preach the 
Gospel to all the world is to sell the only source 
from which the Gospel can be had. Thus the 
Christian Scientist's zeal in selling the book, and 
the secret of its rapid sale, and Mrs. Eddy's 
accumulated millions. 

She says in her autobiography that her trust 
in material things was banished, and "Christian 
Science shuns whatever involves material means 
for the promotion of spiritual ends." We shall 
test her sincerity. In my careful study of her 
history and writings I find little evidence of any 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 171 

faith in God, but plenty of evidence of faith in 
money, and in the reins of government in her 
own hands. She seems never to have trusted 
anyone but herself. 

We are considering now the commercialisation 
of the Holy Ghost, the syndication of the Mes- 
siah. 

The modern commercial method is to get a 
corner on a commodity, and sell it at a high 
price, and keep all comers from entering into 
competition. Through the copyright law Mrs. 
Eddy secured this modern corner upon what she 
tells us was God's dictation, and put the high 
price of $3.00 upon a book costing around 35 
cents to make. It came to her in absolute form 
from God, but in some mysterious way has re- 
quired repeated revisions from time to time, and 
new copyrights, the last one being taken out in 
1906, thus extending the corner upon the Mes- 
siah for many years to come. 

She tells us the "revelation" came to her in 
1866, and the first edition of "Science and 
Health" — the results of the "revelation" — was 
first published in 1875. F° r thirty-five years the 
high price of $3.00 has been maintained for the 
book and her students and followers have not re- 
ceived commissions for effecting its sale, but this 
"preaching the Gospel" has been done for the 
cause, she taking charge of the revenue. 

Between the date of her special revelation 
(1866) and the publication of the book (1875) 
the price for the message was $300, though dur- 



174 FACTS AND FABLES 

he was not looking. In any event, in 1887 she 
instituted such a change in the curriculum that 
it stood as follows : 
Primary Class, twelve lessons, afterwards 

seven lessons $300 

Normal Class, six lessons 200 

Class in Metaphysical Obstetrics, six lessons 100 
Class in Theology, six lessons 200 

Total for her whole "revelation" $800 

It was at this date when money from the 
sale of the Holy Ghost was flowing to her in a 
yellow stream, that she replied to her son's re- 
quest for aid, and forbid him coming to see her : 
"I am going to give up my lease when this class 
is over, and cannot pay your board or give you a 
single dollar now." 

Her system was cash in advance. At first she 
exacted an ironclad contract as follows : 

"We, the undersigned, do hereby agree, in 
consideration of instructions and manuscripts 
received from Mrs. Mary B. Glover, to pay her 
$100 in advance, and ten per cent annually upon 
the income we receive from practicing or teach- 
ing the same. We do also hereby agree to pay 
the said Mary B. Glover $1,000 in case we do 
not practice or teach the science she has taught 
us." 

Being "finally led by a strange providence to 
accept this fee," "the wisdom of this decision" 
figures up something about as follows: Mrs. 
Eddy tells us that during the seven vears up to 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 175 

1889, when she was too poor to give her son a 
dollar, that she taught some four thousand stu- 
dents. Since she practically did all the teaching 
herself in her own rooms, the results were clear 
gain. While she speaks of having many charity 
students, the word charity has in it the metallic 
sound of which Paul speaks when words are 
wanting in genuineness, for she has explained the 
problem for us in the following words : 

"I wrote Science and Health with Key to the 
Scriptures, taught students for a tuition of $300 
each and seldom taught without having charity 
scholars, sometimes a dozen and upwards in one 
class. Afterwards, with touching tenderness, 
those very students sent me the full tuition 
money. However, I returned this money with 
love but it w r as again mailed to me in letters beg- 
ging me to accept it, saying, 'Your teachings are 
worth much more to me than money can be/ ' 

It may be quite certain that her "charity" stu- 
dents all paid up. Our memory brings up the 
incident of the gardener, who was discharged 
soon after his employment, after having gone to 
considerable expense to change his location. Her 
conscience must have disturbed her, for she gave 
$300 to her adopted son to give to him as a gift, 
but incidentally dropped the remark to him that 
it would prove a curse if the gardener accepted 
it. Foster-Eddy incidentally dropped the remark 
in offering the money, and the curse proved an 
economy, for the superstitious gardener refused 
it. 



176 FACTS AND FABLES 

She taught those very "charity" students that 
the patient must pay in order to get the full 
measure of divine aid. She says: "Christian 
Science demonstrates that the patient who pays 
whatever he is able to pay for being healed is 
more apt to recover than he who withholds the 
slight equivalent for health." 

Now, as these students went into the healing 
business and taught the above to their patients, 
making the pay the first requisite to healing, 
their minds would reason that if their leader, 
their Christ, was unpaid for tuition, that they 
would correspondingly lose in divine power. I 
can imagine that many of them saved and denied 
themselves to acquire the money to send to their 
leader in order to get the whole of the charm. 

Now, in counting the full tuition at $300 per 
student for primary courses only, 4,000 students 
in seven years, this would give the sum of $1,200,- 
000. "I cannot pay your board or give you a 
dollar now." 

We begin to find why she was a woman with- 
out Christian faith, without spirituality; judging 
by her own words in her autobiography: "We 
glean spiritual harvests from our own material 
losses." She died worth millions. 

"Recall the picture of the haloed Mrs. Eddy 
standing by His side and holding the Saviour's 
hand, as illustrative of equality and 'Christian 
Unity' and imagine, if imagination be equal to 
the task, Jesus availing Himself of His com- 
munion and kinship with the Father to accumu- 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 177 

late money. Fancy His Sermon on the Mount 
being imparted after the payment to Him by each 
disciple of a financial equivalent of the propor- 
tions of the Eddy exaction. See Him crowding 
into the courts those poor unfortunates who were 
unable to pay, and by the employment of legal 
process seeking to wrest it from them. Imagine 
His requiring all His disciples to sign a contract 
to pay so much in advance, such a percentage of 
their annual income for healing, and $1,000 for- 
feit if they were indisposed to heal after having 
been taught. Hear Him instructing His disci- 
ples to go into all the world, teach the Gospel to 
every creature for cash strictly in advance, to lay 
hands upon the sick and assure them that they 
would be more likely to be healed after having 
paid whatever they were able to pay for the serv- 
ice/ ' (Peabody.) 

Mrs. Eddy closed her "college" in 1889, after 
having tried having it ran for her ; and at a time 
when she was in flight into the "wilderness" to 
escape from her obsession, Malicious Animal 
Magnetism. It was at a time also when she was 
beginning to show her age, which she studiously 
sought to avoid. The charter for her "college" 
had been granted on a perishing straw and she 
was issuing diplomas in violation of the laws of 
the state. Authorities had been lax up to 1889, 
when it began to look as if she would be brought 
to account. She closed the college suddenly. 
None of these facts appear in the home spun rea- 
sons for closing her college. It seems true that 



178 FACTS AND FABLES 

when Mrs. Eddy has told something about her- 
self, what she did and what her motives were; 
that if one cares to get at the truth, one must 
face about and go in the opposite direction, just 
as one must do to find the nest of some birds that 
feign a broken wing to draw you away from it. 

Again, it was her generosity, her love of man- 
kind, that induced her to close her "college," ac- 
cording to her story in her autobiography. While 
she let go of the teaching source of revenue she 
doubled her energies and the energies of the 
faithful on the sale of her books. In the resolu- 
tions dissolving the corporation are these words : 
"The hour has come wherein the great need is 
for more of the Spirit instead of the letter, and 
Science and Health is adapted to work this 
result." 1 

Her books and periodicals could be pushed 
through her business managers with herself hid- 
den from the gaze of the throng, whereas teach- 
ing would necessitate a continued personal contact 
with people. 

No author, before or since Mrs. Eddy, ever 
had as cheap a method of getting books sold as 
she had. By making the book "Science and 
Health" the only pastor, the only way to salvation, 
she placed the burden of its distribution upon all 
her church members and especially upon all the 
authorized healers. It is preaching the Gospel to 
sell her books and it is expected of all her follow- 
ers to do that class of missionary work. 

i Retrospection and Introspection, p. 60. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 179 

In 1897 she published her book "Miscellaneous 
Writings," which was compiled of newspaper 
clippings and articles that had appeared in her 
periodicals; a stuffed volume that sells for two 
dollars. She had discovered that she had a large 
army of people who "obeyed her," as she wrote 
to her son, and thus the boldness of the follow- 
ing edict : 

"Christian Scientists in the United States and 
Canada are hereby enjoined to not teach a stu- 
dent of Christian Science for one year, com- 
mencing on Mar. 14, 1897. 

"Miscellaneous Writings is calculated to pre- 
pare the minds of all true thinkers to understand 
the Christian Science text book more correctly 
than a student can. 

"The Bible, Science and Health with Key to 
the Scriptures, and my other published works, 
are the only proper instructors for this hour. It 
shall be the duty of all Christian Scientists to 
circulate and to sell as many of these books as 
they can. 

"If a member of the First Church of Christ, 
Scientists, shall fail to obey this injunction, it 
will render him liable to lose his membership in 
this church. 

"Mary Baker G. Eddy." 1 

When it is realized that there were many 
teachers of "Christian Science" who made teach- 
ing their profession, and by the edict were cut 
off for a year from their work and forced to sell 

1 Christian Science Journal, March 1897, 



180 FACTS AND FABLES 

her books without pay, the greed of this late 
"revelator" becomes apparent. Considering the 
fact that in 1897 there were two thousand regis- 
tered healers who became purveyors of her books 
without pay, and many thousands of members 
besides who took the hint to get busy, we begin 
to see wherein she could accumulate millions. 

Everything written by Mrs. Eddy was copy- 
righted and sold at exorbitant prices. All her 
people had to look out for her revenue. Even 
the Church Manual, which contains the tenets and 
by-laws of the Mother Church, and laws gov- 
erning all members, commands a high price. She 
made it obligatory upon the branch churches to 
maintain reading rooms which are principally 
sales rooms. These are maintained at the 
expense of the branch church, but the full rev- 
enue from the sale of her books goes to Boston. 
The by-laws governing the sale of her books by 
the churches are as follows: 

"Each church of the Christian Science de- 
nomination shall have a reading room, though 
two or more churches may unite in having read- 
ing rooms, provided these rooms are well 
located." 

"The literature sold or exhibited in the read- 
ing rooms of Christian Science churches shall 
consist only of Science and Health with Key to 
the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, and other 
writings by this author; also the literature pub- 
lished or sold by the Christian Science Publish- 
ing Society." 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 181 

"It shall be the privilege and duty of every 
member, who can afford it, to subscribe for the 
periodicals which are the organs of this church; 
and it shall be the duty of the Directors to see 
that these periodicals are ably edited and kept 
abreast of the times." 

"A member of this church shall not patronize 
a publishing house or bookstore that has for sale 
obnoxious books. ,,1 

The word obnoxious means literature that is in 
any wise antagonistic of "Christian Science. " 

"A member of this church shall neither buy, 
sell or circulate Christian Science literature which 
is not correct in its statement of the Divine Prin- 
ciple and rules and the demonstration of Chris- 
tian Science. Also the spirit in which the writer 
has written his literature shall be definitely con- 
sidered. His writings must show strict adherence 
to the Golden Rule, or his literature shall not be 
adjudged Christian Science. A departure from 
the spirit or letter of this by-law involves schisms 
in our Church and the possible loss, for a time, 
of Christian Science." 2 

The sentences: "Also the spirit in which the 
writer has written his literature shall be definitely 
considered. His writings must show strict ad- 
herence to the Golden Rule, or his literature shall 
not be adjudged Christian Science, ,, means that 
Scientists are forbidden to purchase such books 
as this one, or patronize a store where it is sold. 

* See Manual of Mother Church. 
2 Ibid, p. 43. 



182 FACTS AND FABLES 

In their reading rooms the policy is to make 
you buy, to separate you from your money. You 
are not permitted to copy from books. There is 
one kind of material that Mrs. Eddy never shied 
at, but gravitated toward, like night-flying insects 
toward an arc light. 

Mrs. Eddy was not above filching from her 
faithful, worshiping followers. She never gave 
them anything, but always drew upon their 
pockets ; unless it were to give them the example 
to do likewise. The cheapest edition of her Holy 
Ghost, the Key, is three dollars, costing around 
thirty-five cents to make. Other editions made 
to represent the Bible cost five and six dollars. 
The copyrights range from 1875 t0 x 9o6. The 
book has gone through many changes, for paid 
critics have been at work on it since the early 
8o's, when Rev. Wiggin entirely rewrote it. 

Revised editions have appeared from time to 
time, causing new books to be purchased by her 
following. Foster-Eddy, the adopted son, gave 
out the following notice of the edition of 1891 : 

"Mother has never had time, until the last two 
years, to take the numerous gems that she has 
found in the deep mine of truth and polish them 
on Heaven's emery wheels, arrange them in 
order, and give them a setting so that all could 
behold and see their perfect purity. Now here 
they are in this new revised "Science and 
Health." 

The Journal told the people that they could 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 183 

not own too many copies. To many the book is 
a fetish. 

In February, 1908, only two short years before 
her death, she perpetrated the most brazen act, 
and what one can hardly refrain from calling a 
swindle. Over her own signature she said : 

Take Notice, 
"I request Christian Scientists universally to 
read the paragraph beginning at line thirty of 
page 442 in the edition of 'Science and Health/ 
which will be issued February 29. I consider the 
information given there to be of great impor- 
tance at this stage of the workings of animal 
magnetism, and it will greatly aid the students in 
their individual experiences. 

"Mary Baker G. Eddy/' 

Now the matter of "great importance' 3 if so 
important, could have been given in less space by 
half than the notice took, but that would not have 
brought in tens of thousands of dollars. 

The matter of great importance was about her 
devil, since that was the most important part of 
her writings, and her greatest concern. It would 
please him if he could discover how much money 
she made by merely mentioning the fact to her 
worshipers that she had something on him. 

What was this information of great impor- 
tance, which Christian Scientists universally 
should read, which would greatly aid the stu- 
dents, and for which many thousands hastened to 
spend from three to six dollars to purchase? It 



184 FACTS AND FABLES 

was nothing more than three lines inserted in a 
blank space, at the end of a chapter, and did not 
require the change of but one plate or page of 
the book. 

"Christian Scientists, be a law unto yourselves, 
that mental Malpractice can harm you neither 
when asleep nor awake." i 

Outside the sway of superstition, common 
sense and honesty revolt against such imposi- 
tions. But the superstition seems to be so hope- 
less that the most of those who were duped do 
not seem to be aware of it, and would resent it 
as false were one to attempt to enlighten them. 

Whenever a people accept with worshipful awe 
the premise that their idol is the mouthpiece of 
God, they will stand for any manner of imposi- 
tion. They even seem to like commands that 
exact of them the unexpected. 

It was so when Mrs. Eddy's fertile commercial 
brain received the "revelation" that the time was 
ripe to feed her followers spiritual things by way 
of the mouth. Now she did not believe in the 
senses, except when. they could be indulged to 
her financial profit. She worked the sense of 
touch, through her book as a fetish; the sense 
of sight through the sale of hired artist's crea- 
tions to make her look spiritual and young; the 
sense of smell she herself never had, so no in- 
cense from heaven has ever been foisted upon 
her ready purchasers at so much per bottle ; and 
her hymns are imposed upon her congregations 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 185 

at frequent intervals by specific order through 
her by-laws. 

This time her commercial "stunt" was in 
spoons. In talking to individual "Scientists" 
upon their philosophy I have frequently felt that 
they had taken Mrs. Eddy's rambling teachings 
in with some kind of a conveyor with a tight 
bottom. 

Her Command — not request — went out as fol- 
lows : 

"Christian Science Spoons. On each of these 
most beautiful spoons is a motto in bas-relief 
that every person on earth needs to hold in 
thought. Mother requests that Christian Scien- 
tists shall not ask to be informed what this motto 
is, but each Scientist shall purchase at least one 
spoon, and those who can afford it, one dozen 
spoons, that their families may read this motto 
at every meal and their guests be made partakers 
of its simple truth." 

It was not the spiritual import of the motto 
that concerned the Scientist's Oracle, but the 
revenue. Common sense shows this. The price 
of the spoons was three dollars for the plain sil- 
ver and five dollars for those with gold plated 
bowls. Thirty-six and sixty dollars per dozen. 
Take this picture of the new "voice of God" 
home with you. 

In the Cosmopolitan Magazine for February, 
191 1, appears a stock article by Frederick Dixon, 
and two pictures said to be of Mrs. Eddy. The 
faithful have been quite thoroughly worked 



186 FACTS AND FABLES 

through the sense of sight, for in almost every 
Scientist's home or office may be seen hanging 
on the walls artificial creations done by skilled 
artists. The half million edition of the Cosmo- 
politan was quickly exhausted. In places the 
news stands sold the magazine for one dollar 
per copy. 

The picture this time is scattered broadcast; 
for the management of the Scientists had mil- 
lions of the article with Mrs. Eddy's picture 
separately bound in the Cosmopolitan cover, and 
given away in numerous places. 

This latest picture, purely an artist's creation, 
gives a young, finely preserved face, looking at 
one through a rift in the clouds; probably from 
the "Mount" at the time the artist was at work; 
and from the abode of the Trinity now. 

Below the copyrighted picture is this informa- 
tion: "A character delineation of the Christian 
Science leader who has joined the company of 
the immortals. The wonderful spirituality de- 
picted here is said by those who were close to 
Mrs. Eddy during her last years to have illu- 
mined her face almost constantly." 

Let us test this "illumination" in the balance 
of evidence, and take on suspicion the testimony 
of "those who were close to Mrs. Eddy." It is 
logical to do this since we cannot find that while 
she lived she ever represented herself as she was, 
but always affected an ideal which she gave out 
as herself. 

She died at the age of eighty-nine. If she had 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 187 

been so marvelously preserved and her counte- 
nance had shone with a spiritual halo, she would 
have exhibited herself to hundreds of thousands 
of people as a "demonstration" of Christian Sci- 
ence living. Instead of that only "those who 
were close to her" had opportunity to see her as 
she was, and witness the usual senile degenera- 
tion that occurred in her as in others of like 
years. Her own son in 1907 found her "emaci- 
ated" and "rambling." 

Did the journey to her new mansion on Janu- 
ary 26, 1908, by special train, with a pilot-engine 
in front and another guarding the rear to avoid 
accident or the derailing of the train by her 
devil — she being heavily veiled and carried to and 
from the train by one of her male attendants — 
indicate that she could skip across country for 
several miles like a school girl if she wished, or 
that the placid trust and faith of many a good 
Christian grandmother cast a spiritual illumina- 
tion over her face "almost constantly"? 

One never escapes those hideous "Christian 
Science" sign boards that advertise their wares, 
their "revelation," and the wonders of their 
leader. 

Again, Mrs. Eddy is said by "those close to 
her," that, "as she approached the valley and 
shadows of death, she declared that 'God is my 
Life/ " Mrs. Stetson, commenting upon this, 
said: "Like the first demonstrator of Christian 
Science, Jesus the Christ, who at this supreme 
moment of His demonstration cried, 'My God, 



188 FACTS AND FABLES 

my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' she with 
sublime faith in the Principle of being, knew that 
her life was hid with Christ in God." 

This means to them that Jesus made a failure 
of the final test upon the cross; that Mrs. Eddy 
triumphed at the supreme moment. If the facts 
were stated with the same frankness that charac- 
terized her son's description of his visit to his 
mother in 1907, the sign board might have upon 
it as her last mumblings, "They are stealing my 
things." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

MRS. EDDY'S PHILOSOPHY. 

In examining into the philosophy and "meta- 
physics" of Mary Baker Eddy, we will shorten 
the labor and simplify the task by reversing the 
attitude with which most people approach her 
writings; namely, with the mistaken idea that 
they contain a philosophy founded upon some 
degree of learning. In the whole range of litera- 
ture it will be difficult to find another volume with 
like ambition, containing as many words as "Sci- 
ence and Health," where the author actually had 
so little mental equipment. 

Few people begin with the superstitious idea 
that the book they are reading is a revelation, 
precluding the need of learning on the part of 
the author. That comes later. But many begin 
with the mistaken idea that she was a woman of 
a broad knowledge of medicine, science, theology 
and philosophy. When they early discover that 
they cannot understand "Science and Health," 
and run into a tangle of contradictions and a 
maze of verbiage, they block their own progress 
by laying the blame upon themselves, instead of 
where it belongs, with the author of the book. 

There is scarcely a position taken in the book 
but that is flatly contradicted over and over. 

189 



190 FACTS AND FABLES 

Then it is full of words that do not explain; high 
sounding words and passages from the Bible 
which are probably intended to illustrate, prove 
or amplify, which only confuse by diverting the 
mind from the idea it was struggling to grasp. 

I want the reader who finds that he cannot get 
sense out of "Science and Health" to cease 
blaming himself, and recognize that there is so 
little sense there, and what little there is, is hid- 
den in a maze of nonsense, and worse, in assump- 
tion and wilful misrepresentation. The book is 
not above you, but below you. To get at what 
it systematically teaches requires a large amount 
of forking away straw, without any wheat in it. 

I find that Mrs. Eddy herself says that your 
brains and intelligence are of no avail in this 
matter. I take it that the less you use, the more 
rapid will be your progress in "Science." 

She says: "Christian Science silences human 
will. Will power is but a product of belief, and 
this belief commits depredations upon harmony. 
Human will is an animal propensity, not a faculty 
of Soul. Hence it cannot govern men aright." 

The following from three men of large intelli- 
gence, who have read "Science and Health," will 
amplify Mrs. Eddy's words just quoted: 

(i) By Dr. Polk, Dean of the Medical De- 
partment, Cornell University: "Take Science 
and Health, separate yourself from disturbing 
surroundings, open its pages with a mind even 
somewhat prejudiced, set yourself seriously to 
the task of comprehending its various iterations 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 191 

and reiterations, its statements backwards, its 
statements forward, its statements sidewise, and 
every other wise, of its initial proposition, 
throughout its 569 pages, and I know that there 
are many of you who, long before you had 
fathomed its depths, would find yourselves in a 
state of mental vacuity fit for the action of sug- 
gestion.". (New York Medical Journal, April 6, 
1909.) 

(2) Dean Hart * * * : "If any cure (in 
mental therapeutics) be effected, it has nothing 
to do with the truth or untruth of the particular 
theory of the professor; it is, simply, that by his 
methods the mind is stimulated to reassert itself. 
Success greatly, nay, often entirely, depends upon 
the disposition of the mind of the patient, the 
nerval susceptibility, and the strength of the ex- 
pectation. If these be favorable, then the perusal 
of Mrs. Eddy's book is no small mesmerizing 
condition. I have found that Science and Health 
is the best mode of inducing the mesmeric sleep 
I have ever experienced. The repetition of sense- 
less sentences, with constantly changing significa- 
tion of words, whose new meanings have to be 
gleaned from the context, produces a strange 
maze that dazes the mind, and produces a mes- 
meric condition. The modus operandi of the 
Christian Science healer is to all intents and pur- 
poses that of the hypnotist. By the silence, the 
motionless sitting, the subdued voice, the cabalis- 
tic sentences — for they are senseless, and cannot 
excite the intelligence — the mind is soothed ; then 



194 FACTS AND FABLES 

require her to take her brand off of many re- 
prisals that were quietly pursuing their own way 
in their own pastures when she ran them down 
and put her own brand on them — a brand de- 
signed to entirely obliterate former marks of 
identification. Whatever belongs to her she will 
be welcome to, and we will not attempt to claim 
them for others. The reader may discover that 
as a "rustler" she had no equal. 

Since Mrs. Eddy's first "revelation" was her 
discovery that she could turn Quimby's manu- 
scripts to financial account, after his death in 
1866 — that what she had of his system of mind 
healing was a real asset, and the beginning of her 
"Divine Mission" — we will briefly examine the 
way she served his brand. 

At first she did not claim ( for what she taught 
as Quimby's) a world philosophy and religion, 
but simply that it was a potent system of healing 
and "Moral Science." Her professional card 
read: 

MRS. MARY G. GLOVER 

TEACHER OF 

MORAL SCIENCE 

For the first few years after Quimby's death 
it was more profitable to tell the truth about the 
source of her teachings than to make false 
claims. Mrs. Eddy therefore exhibited Quimby's 
brand with much ado about its genuineness. It 
was later, when she got the "revelation," that 
there was a more profitable brand to be used than 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE ' 195 

Quimby's, that she attempted to cover up his 
brand with the big one — God and Rev. Mary 
Baker Glover Patterson Eddy. 

The evidence is most conclusive that Mrs. 
Eddy got her system of healing from Quimby. 
It has undergone some changes since it fell into 
her hands. These changes are not for the bet- 
ter. From him she got her initial ideas about 
God and Christ, but these ideas were not carried 
away with much clearness, and when later she 
attempted to formulate this part of Quimby's 
philosophy, the results are what we find in the 
confusing pages of "Science and Health." 

Mrs. Eddy's next round-up brought in the 
time-honored premise, God is all in all. Along 
with this came the one that every civilized people 
counts axiomatic: God is good, God is mind, 
Spirit. Upon these common tenets she placed 
her brand. It took a "revelation" to bring them 
in. Now these are two of her four "fundamental 
propositions." Beneath her own brand we see 
very familiar marks. She immediately posts the 
sign, "Thou shalt not steal." 

The third and fourth "fundamental proposi- 
tions" and corner-stones of "Christian Science" 
we will let her keep as her "inspired revelations." 
Though there are faint markings beneath her 
grotesque brand, we do not believe the early 
owners will resort to a hanging over the cripples, 
and we shall not go to the trouble to decipher 
the early markings. Propositions three and four 
are as follows: "God, Spirit, being all, nothing 



196 FACTS AND FABLES 

is matter." "Life, God, omnipotent good, deny 
death, evil sin, disease — Disease, sin, evil, death, 
deny good, omnipotent God, Life." 1 

At this point I want to give to the reader a 
sample of her "metaphysics." To prove the truth 
of the last proposition she says that "according 
to the Scriptures, I find every mortal man a liar." 
She throws in the word "Mortal" without any 
extra charge, a mere bit of "spiritual" generosity. 

I cannot refrain from giving another example 
of "Christian Science" metaphysical proof : "The 
divine metaphysics of Christian Science, like the 
method in mathematics, proves the rule by inver- 
sion. For example: There is no pain in truth, 
and no truth in pain; no nerve in mind, and no 
mind in nerve; no matter in mind, and no mind 
in matter; no matter in life, and no life in mat- 
ter; no matter in good, and no good in matter." 

If that is not proof to you, it is because your 
"understanding" is on so low a plane, and be- 
cause "every mortal man is a liar." Being mor- 
tal or "mortal mind," "Malicious Animal Mag- 
netism," the devil, you cannot be expected to 
comprehend such spiritual things. But don't be 
discouraged, for there is hope. Just "dig day 
and night in Science and Health," without per- 
mitting a ray of intelligent light to enter your 
brain, and you will finally attain to that sug- 
gestible state wherein you will understand that 
"there is no pain in truth, and no truth in pain. 
No matter in good, and no good in matter." 

i S. & H v p. 113. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 197 

If you question further the divine wisdom and 
logic of this "metaphysics" you may be reminded 
again of the source from which it came : "From 
the infinite One in Christian Science comes one 
Principle and its infinite idea, and with this in- 
finitude come spiritual rules, laws, and their dem- 
onstration, which, like the great Giver, are 'the 
same yesterday, and today, and forever/ " 

If one knew no better, he would believe from 
reading Mrs. Eddy's books, or listening to the 
authorized lecturers sent out from Boston, that 
all the world outside of "Scientists" believed in a 
God living in a body, with legs, arms and organs 
like man. The following paragraph from "Sci- 
ence and Health" discharges itself of some of the 
"revealed wisdom" which no doubt many "Scien- 
tists" believe is instructive to this benighted age : 
"Christian Science strongly emphasizes the 
thought that God is not corporeal, but incorporeal. 

"As the words person and personal are com- 
monly and ignorantly employed, they often lead, 
when applied to Deity, to confused and erroneous 
conceptions of Divinity and its distinction from 
humanity. If the term personality, as applied 
to God, means infinite personality, then God is 
infinite person — in the sense of infinite personal- 
ity, but not in the lower sense. An infinite mind 
in a finite form is an absolute impossibility." 1 

Mrs. Eddy has not only put her brand upon, 
but seems to have acquired a corner on all "spirit- 
ual language" and interpretation. In no place 

i S. & H., p. 116, 1909. 



198 FACTS AND FABLES 

does she ever say : "Other religious people share 
this belief with us." One would infer that 
"Christian Science" alone enjoys the special 
divine favor and wisdom. Indeed her spiritual 
definition of church excludes all the Christian 
denominations from God's recognition. They do 
not measure up to the "signs following." She 
says: "God is Spirit; therefore the language of 
Spirit must be, and is, spiritual. Christian Sci- 
ence attaches no physical nature and significance 
to the Supreme Being, or His manifestations; 
mortals alone do this. God's essential language 
is spoken of in the last chapter of Mark's Gospel 
as the new tongue, the spiritual meaning of which 
is attained through signs following." 1 

On the same page with the above illumination 
we find her customary rounding up of the good 
things of the New Testament to help her ambi- 
tions. Note how she puts her brand upon any- 
thing she wants in the Bible. "Truth is a revela- 
tion." 

"Jesus bade his disciples beware of the leaven 
of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees, which he 
defined as human doctrines. His parable of the 
leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three 
measures of meal, till the whole was leavened, 
impels the inference that the spiritual leaven sig- 
nifies the Science of Christ and its spiritual inter- 
pretation — an inference far above the merely 
ecclesiastical and formal application of the illus- 
tration." 

i S. & H., p. 117, 1909. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 199 

"Did not this parable point a moral with a 
prohecy, foretelling the second appearing in the 
flesh of Christ, Truth, hidden in sacred secrecy 
from the visible world ?" 

How convenient it is to have a branding iron 
big enough to cover anything that one wants ! In 
previous chapters we saw how Mrs. Eddy took 
in the whole of the twelfth chapter of Revelation, 
the New Jerusalem, and all. She is especially 
fond of rounding up prophecy, and is ingenious 
to be able to discover a prophecy pointing to her- 
self in the parable of the "measures of meal. ,, 

Let us pause a moment over the words quqted 
above: "foretelling the second appearing in the 
flesh of Christ, Truth." In no place has Mrs. 
Eddy intimated that any figure in history outside 
herself could lay claim to being "the second ap- 
pearing in the flesh of Christ, Truth." In this 
connection let us have her positive statement 
again from her autobiography : "The second ap- 
pearing of Jesus is unquestionably the spiritual 
advent of the advancing idea of God as in Chris- 
tian Science." 

The word Jesus is wrongly used, for it should 
be Christ, "Truth," according to Mrs. Eddy's re- 
peated explanation of Jesus, Truth and Christ. 
Jesus was not to come again, according to her 
teachings ; but the Christ, or Truth, should come 
as the Comforter; and she has informed us in 
unmistakable terms that this has been fulfilled in 
the coming of "Science and Health." The 
prophecy she finds in the measure of meal indi- 



200 FACTS AND FABLES 

cates that she is the "second appearing in the 
flesh of Christ." 

Had she been confronted with this boldness, 
there would have been some strange fluttering 
in many meaningless words to hypnotize you into 
losing the question or point raised, with the view 
to getting you satisfied and off the track, the 
question unanswered, and the prophecy still in- 
tact as pointing to her as Christ in the flesh. 

Mrs. Eddy claims absolute knowledge of the 
nature of God. Let us look at her god and see 
what new light her "inspiration" affords. Here, 
as elsewhere, we will find that she defines a thing 
and then departs from her original proposition 
as soon as she begins to say things. 

She says: 

"God is Divine Principle." 

"God is substance that is, the only real sub- 
stance." 

"In Christian Science we learn that God is 
definitely individual, and not personal." 

"God is not a person." 

When Mrs. Eddy is speaking "metaphysically," 
propounding that which she is welcome to keep 
her brand on, she postulates a self -centered, self- 
interested god. Her's is a god that has no inter- 
est outside its-self. It has created nothing except 
some abstract "ideas." It has no creation as 
active, willing, doing beings. It being but an 
abstract principle itself, such words as parent- 
hood, love, mercy, justice, grace, compassion, 
have no place in its nature, for it has no one or 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 201 

no thing upon which to express such qualities. It 
is a selfish, soulless god. 

The above is in keeping with her statement 
that, "Prayer to a personal God is a hindrance." 
She further says that "God is the all-inclusive 
One, who with His thoughts, ideas, shadows, 
constitutes the universe." But she also tells us 
that "God is not in the things He hath made." 1 
Again she says: "This divine parent no more 
enters into his creation than the human father 
enters into his child." 2 "His creation is not the 
ego," but the reflection of the ego, "The ego is 
God Himself, the infinite soul." 

She tells us that "all that can exist is God and 
His idea." Now this idea, her idealized man, 
has no volition or power of his own. He is but 
the image in the glass, "is incapable of sin, sick- 
ness, and death, inasmuch as he derives his 
essence from God, and possesses not a single 
original or underived power. Hence the real man 
cannot depart from holiness. Nor can God, by 
whom man was evolved, engender the capacity or 
freedom to sin." 

The "Christian Science" man, like Mrs. Eddy's 
abstract god, is but an abstraction, a soulless, 
powerless, volitionless, sinless nonentity. He 
does not exist as a living being, only as an image. 
He cannot act, cannot think, cannot will, cannot 
feel or experience, cannot look up and love his 
creator. If he loved his creator he would be 
greater than his god, for the god who created 

i S. & H., 1888, p. 50. 
2 Unity of Good, p. 48. 



202 FACTS AND FABLES 

him as a thought does not love him, for he has no 
capacity for returning the love. 

Did not Mrs. Eddy herself say that she loved 
no one (except as she loved everyone). Hers 
was a self-love grown to monstrous proportions. 
The fruits of love are always seen in gifts and 
service. She exacted from others tithes and sac- 
rifice, but never gave in return. Her philosophy 
is her truest biographer. Her high sounding 
words are but bounding brass and tinkling sym- 
bols" when heard in their true tones. Do we 
gather figs from thistles ? Has the world a single 
money changer in the millionaire class to exhibit, 
who has no charities but keeps his money, whose 
postulation of God would not be a caricature to 
this age? 

Mrs. Eddy learnedly informs us that we have 
no part with God, not even her idealized man 
has any life and existence of his own. She says: 
"The greater cannot be the lesser. This is a lead- 
ing point in the science of mind, that Principle 
is not in its idea. Spirit, soul is not confined in 
man, and is never in matter." This is one of her 
prize winners, and I believe her brand was this 
time placed on a fresh spot, for I cannot see any 
indications of any former brand. This one was 
probably born in Lynn about the time that she 
had so silenced matter as to get the faintest 
whisperings of the spirit that was dictating the 
"revelations," silenced all but that "noisy bridge" 
and those "pesky frogs"; but corporeal, patient 
Mr. Patterson tended to their croakings. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 203 

This reminds me of an incident on the frontier 
when I was a boy of about twelve years. There 
was a railroad camp located near our home, a 
new road being under way of construction 
through the country. A man rode into camp 
after dark, leading a trading horse. One of the 
men owned an indian pony that was in another 
state. A trade was quickly made, the one horse 
several hundred miles removed, the other in the 
dark. The trader moved on after the trade. 

The railroader became restless during the 
night over his trade, for his lantern had revealed 
many irregularities about that horse. Following 
the part of caution he arose at the first break of 
dawn, dressed hurriedly and singled out his new 
horse. One glance was enough to make him act, 
and act quickly, before the camp was astir. 
Throwing a saddle upon another horse he stole 
out of camp, leading the object of his immediate 
concern. By the least conspicuous route he led 
him into the hills, up to the head of a deep ravine 
and there turned him loose, after having ex- 
pressed himself so forcibly that the belated owls 
drew their somber, feathery cloaks about them 
and retired meditatively into their respective dog 
holes. His horse had "strayed away in the 
night." 

While riding the country on one of my hunt- 
ing excursions I heard of the whereabouts of the 
missing horse. I reported the news to the last 
owner, who was then packing up to move a long 
way ahead to another section. He gave me a 



204 FACTS AND FABLES 

thrill of joy by telling me that I could have the 
horse if I would go and get it. I lost no time in 
possessing my own. The man who had corralled 
him was a sort of half wit. He charged me one 
dollar damages and released him to me. I, how- 
ever, hesitated some before parting with my dol- 
lar and accepting the horse. My sense of econo- 
my was overcome by my sense of humor. I had 
caught an idea. I led my horse toward home by 
the least conspicuous route, and tied him to a 
thicket of willows, to be brought into camp after 
dark. 

After supper I mixed with the railroaders, and 
told them that I now owned the horse that had 
"strayed" away. One of the men spoke up, 
"What will you take for him, kid?" "Five dol- 
lars," was my reply. He pulled a five dollar bill 
out of his pocket and handed it to me. My joy 
was full. Four dollars to the good, and oh! the 
glory of such a "swap" with a grown man, and 
what a hero I would be when that horse was seen 
by the whole camp in daylight. 

Were I to describe that horse the reader would 
say that not only had I searched the pages of all 
the stock books for equine ailments, but that my 
imagination had been brought into full requisi- 
tion besides. Suffice to say, that I became the 
hero of the camp, with thanks from all, for mer- 
riment is an asset of no mean value in the dull 
routine of railroading. 

I observed one peculiarity about that horse, 
namely: that he only had one faint brand upon 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 205 

him, evidently put there when he was a colt — 
before he became a horse of many owners, visit- 
ing the haunts of men only under cover of the 
night. 

When seen in the daylight many of Mrs. 
Eddy's "discoveries" and "revelations" will be- 
come "strays," finding new owners only under 
cover of the deep shadows of ignorance. 

But she tells us that, "To the ignorant age in 
which it first appears, science seems a miracle." 
So did that horse. 

Mrs. Eddy says : "Christian Science makes men 
Godlike." We will quite agree with this if we 
may be permitted to limit the likeness to the god 
of her "fundamental propositions," the true 
"Christian Science" god. This god will have to 
stay around, and here and there be brought in 
under cover of night. 

Now I appreciate that to the "Scientists" this 
will come as blasphemy, as "persecution" ; and I 
can hear some of them, the gentler ones, quoting: 
"Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" Others 
of the "inner circle," if following in the footsteps 
of their last Christ, will whisper, "he ought to 
be treated out of the body". 

There is a premise that obtains as the central 
theme of practically every religion in the world, 
namely : "In Him we live and move and have our 
being." The one exception is to be found in Mrs. 
Eddy's fundamental religion, the one that is her 
own. 

Outside of herself, and those "scientists" who 



206 FACTS AND FABLES 

know and accept what she taught as her "funda- 
mentals," all others have understood that word 
"we" to mean living beings with volition, will, 
and power, living, thinking, loving beings. 

I ask the reader to read carefully the follow- 
ing paragraph as a whole, not a "detached sen- 
tence," as Mrs. Eddy charges her critics with 
giving. 

"What evidence of Soul or of immortality 
have you within mortality? Even according to 
the teachings of natural science, man has never 
beheld Spirit or Soul leaving a body or entering 
it. What basis is there for the theory of indwell- 
ing spirit, except the claim of mortal belief? What 
would be thought of the declaration that a house 
was inhabited, and by a certain class of persons, 
when no such persons were ever seen to go into 
the house or come out of it, nor were they even 
visible through the windows? Who can see a 
soul in the body? (S. & H.) 

Read again where she says : "The conventional 
firm called matter and mind, God never 
formed." 1 

"Intelligence never produces non-intelligence; 
but matter is ever non-intelligent, and therefore 
cannot spring from Intelligence." 2 

"To regard God as the creator of matter, is 
not only to make Him responsible for all disasters, 
physical and moral, but to announce Him as their 
source, thereby making him guilty of maintain- 

i S. & H., p. 274, 1909. 
2 S. & H., p. 276, 1099. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 207 

ing in the form and under the name of natural 
law." 

The above sentences will not be claimed by 
anyone else, and would have been perfectly safe 
straying around without the sign, "Copyrighted." 
It is the kind that is best taken with a spoon. 

No wonder that Mrs. Eddy forbid in her by- 
laws, under pain of ex-communication, discus- 
sions among the members of the teachings she 
gives; and instructs them that when they have 
listened to a lecture from one of the authorized 
lecturers, whose lecture has passed the censor- 
ship of the Mother Church clerk, that they must 
immediately scatter, and "retire in quiet thought 
on that subject." 

Here are some that are straight from the di- 
vine shoulder, aimed below the belt to end the 
"war in Heaven" : 

"If God could be conscious of sin, His infinite 
power would straightway reduce the universe to 
chaos." * 

Now Mrs. Eddy was conscious of sin. What 
wouldn't she have done to us if she had possessed 
the "infinite power"; for she said in a letter to 
her son: "The world, the flesh and evil I am at 
war with, and if anyone comes to me it must be 
to help me and not to hinder me in this warfare." 

Again she informs us: "If God has any real 
knowledge of sin, sickness and death, they must 
be eternal." 2 

i Unity of Good, p. 13. 
2 Ibid. 



208 FACTS AND FABLES 

1 will leave the following statement to be 
treated by each reader as he prefers, simply sug- 
gesting that her god probably had many things 
to unlearn, for she was its creator : 

"If God knows that which is not permanent, 
it follows that he knows something that he must 
learn to unknow, for the benefit of our race." * 

"As God is Mind, if this mind is familiar with 
evil, all cannot be good therein." * 

Now let us turn to the first words of her book, 
"Unity of Good," and sit as learners as she ex- 
plains the dilemma concerning the points in hand. 
First let me remind you in a sentence from 
"Science and Health" that she is a prophet who 
understands, and the only one of the whole line 
to whom this "understanding" was trusted. She 
says: "The prophets of old believed but did not 
understand." v 

There is a warning note in the following about 
one's "own destruction, should one attempt too 
hard to unravel these things hard to be under- 
stood." 

She says: "Perhaps no doctrine of Christian 
Science arouses so much natural doubt and ques- 
tioning as this, that God knows no such thing as 
sin. Indeed, this may be set down as one of the 
things hard to be understood, such as the Apostle 
Peter declared were taught by his fellow Apostle, 
Paul," which they that are unlearned and un- 
stable wrest — unto their own destruction," 2 

i Unity of Good, p. 13. 

2 Ibid, p. 14. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 209 

"Let us then reason together on this important 
subject, whose statement in Christian Science 
may justly be characterized as wonderful." 

"Does God knozv or behold sin, sickness, and 
ieathr 

"The nature and character of God is so little 
apprehended and demonstrated by mortals, I 
counsel my students to defer this infinite inquiry, 
in their discussions of Christian Science. In fact 
they had better leave the subject untouched, un- 
til they draw nearer to the divine character, and 
are practically able to testify, by their lives, that 
as they come closer to the true understanding of 
God they lose all sense of error." * 

The above paragraphs contain the whole of 
the page and the "important question" that she 
raises, and says, "Let us then reason together 
on" is not answered at all, but her students are 
admonished to "leave the subject untouched" 
until they lose all sense of error. 

This is a very good sample of Mrs. Eddy's 
philosophy. She is fond of raising momentous 
questions, and thundering forth dogmatic state- 
ments which prove nothing, and then flutter 
away from the issue in high sounding Scriptural 
quotations, and irrelevant verbiage. The "Scien- 
tists" marvel at the wonders of her wisdom, and 
resolve to make themselves worthy of such a 
spiritual leader, and hope to attain to the "under- 
standing" by which they may follow her wisdom. 

Her writings are full of the most tender, emo- 

i Unity of Good, p. 1. 



210 FACTS AND FABLES 

tional and inspiring words, often used with little 
fitness and clearness. The words, not the coher- 
ence with which they are used, give the spiritual 
uplift. To illustrate my psychological point, try 
this experiment: 

Take a comfortable position, close the eyes 
and relax all muscles. Repeat over and over 
again mentally the following list of words. Do 
this for a quarter to half an hour and note the 
spiritual uplift: Love, charity, pity, compassion, 
peace, harmony, Heaven, joy, cheer, salvation, the 
cross, life eternal, infinite — Fatherhood — God — 
Gospel — healing — glory — Christ Jesus — beauty — 
Love. 

There is no sentence formed consciously by 
these words, but down in the great workshop of 
the soul, the subconscious, there springs into 
form a complete sentence, or even a touching 
scene or memory about each word repeated. A 
sweet incense, may we not call it, rises to the con- 
sciousness from the secret places below the nor- 
mal threshold, where the great laboratory creates 
ministering angels, sweet essences in the mys- 
terious alchemy of ideation. 

As unhappy as the task is, I shall have to show 
that the beautiful words adorning Mrs. Eddy's 
writings do not belong to her philosophy, but are 
attractive garments taken from others and thrown 
about her gaunt and cheerless forms. It is these 
beautiful garments, the music and incense of the 
words, that attract and give a feeling of uplift 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 211 

and well being. It is also these that obscure 
the dead bones of the philosophy beneath them. 

Mrs. Eddy's own life was a caricature com- 
pared to the ideal Mrs. Eddy made up by herself 
and artists, the character of others being drawn 
on to compose it. The worshiping "Scientists" 
see the composite Mrs. Eddy as their ideal, and 
shutting their minds to facts become thus in- 
capable of learning better. 

Quote to them her soulless statements, and they 
will at first disbelieve that she said them; but 
when her own books are produced the next de- 
fense is that you cannot understand the true 
meaning. Ask them to give the spiritual meaning 
for you, and you may meet the acknowledgement 
that they have not yet attained to the degree of 
understanding sufficient to clear the enigma. They 
first blame it upon your low plane. Pushed to 
the wall they next blame themselves, but so deep- 
seated has become the superstition that they will 
appear ignorant, mean and ridiculous, but will de- 
fend her spiritual superiority. One jot or tittle 
of her wisdom and spiritual purity must not be 
sacrificed. 

There are two reasons for this. The first is 
that upon her superior fitness, wisdom and in- 
fallibility hangs the whole of her inspiration. Her 
verbiage must all be accepted, on the grounds of 
her claims of Divine guidance, therefore nothing 
must be questioned. It must all go down with 
one gulp. She was always highly practical, thus 
her spoons. 



212 FACTS AND FABLES 

She builded about her system a high wall de- 
signed to keep everyone out excepting her elect, 
like the great wall around a great area of China. 
At the time when the Chinese wall was built it 
may have served as a barrier against the enemy ; 
but today it has little value against the modern 
munitions of warfare. 

One would have thought that a grotesque wall 
of special revelation in this age would have acted 
as its own destroyer; but not so, for it seems 
that there are yet many who want their religion 
brought to them in a ready made garment, re- 
quiring no fitting or adjusting, simply getting 
into. A few stones in this wall of exclusion are 
as follows: 

"These systems are one and all pantheistic, and 
savor of pandemonium, a house divided against 
itself." 

"Other foundations there are none. All other 
systems are as reeds shaken in the wind, not 
houses built on the rock/' 

"Whatever is said or written correctly on this 
science originates from the principle and prac- 
tice laid down in Science and Health, a work I 
published in 1875. 

"God has set his signet to this Science." "The 
Science of Christianity comes with fan in hand 
to separate the chaff from the wheat." "Out- 
side this Science all is unstable error." 



CHAPTER IX. 
mrs. eddy's philosophy (Continued). 

Every religion has sought to find an ideal place 
for man. How natural it is, since religion is a 
personal matter and concerns not only the seer, 
whose mind reaches out in search of things ulti- 
mate, but every human heart. 

Many are the theories upon man's ideal end, 
some placing it afar off, after he shall have 
passed through cycle after cycle of evolutionary 
development, others believing that it comes with 
a sudden transition, at death, after a life well 
done; while others try to fix it so that the ideal 
is now, and all that the universe holds for man is 
attainable now. 

This latter contains within it a germ that meets 
a large response in this restless age, to do and to 
be nozv. Space will not permit in this volume a 
review of the various theories struggling with this 
highly utilitarian doctrine. 

Mrs. Eddy sought to be all inclusive in her 
"revelations", to leave nothing more to be hoped 
for, and to leave no ground unturned for other 
ambitious persons to plant in. So she used the 
much used phrase as one of her cornerstones- 
God is All in AIL She blazed a trail for herself 
by the most radical use of this phrase, for she 

213 



214 FACTS AND FABLES 

made it serve her one great aim, — the annihila- 
tion of matter. She has no regard for conven- 
tional orders of logic, for she, being "inspired," 
became a law unto herself. She makes no apolo- 
gies for upsetting all standards of reasoning, and 
dogmatically tells us that it is so and so. She 
says : "In this revolutionary period, like the shep- 
herd boy with his sling, woman goes forth to 
battle with Goliath." * 

She places herself in a class unique by sallying 
forth with the statements : "God being all, noth- 
ing is matter." "Is spirit the source or creator 
of matter?" "Science reveals nothing in Spirit 
out of which to create matter." "Science destroys 
matter. Spirit is the only substance and con- 
sciousness recognized by Science." 

"It would be difficult to name any previous 
teachers, save Jesus and His apostles, who have 
thus taught." With this boast we will quite agree, 
with the qualification that Jesus and the Apostles 
do not join her in such teachings. 

In the preceding chapter we saw that Mrs. 
Eddy's ideal man is an abstraction, in the nature 
of an image of God,— not God or any part of 
Him, for she Savs that God does not dwell in 
this ideal man and thus cannot give him life. 
He only reflects Himself in some medium not 
Himself, — and what He sees as Mrs. Eddy's 
ideal man is only Himself. If we were to follow 
this to its logical conclusion, the result would in- 
evitably be that there is no ideal man at all ; that 

i & & H., p. 268, 1909. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 215 

God has no creatures, no children, no creation; 
that He constitutes the whole and is loveless be- 
cause there is none to love; therefore, He is self- 
centered and selfish. Her ideal man who cannot 
think, will, act, or exercise volition, is not only 
loveless, but does not exist. 

Now a large share of her writings are devoted 
to the annihilation of matter. A veritable bom- 
bardment from her "sling" leaves nothing left 
of this "Goliath", who, from her standpoint, 
never did exist, since God is All in All, and "there 
cannot be more than all" and "science reveals 
nothing in Spirit out of which to create matter." 
The impact from this kind of rocks is, indeed, 
stunning and while some of us feel that we still 
exist, the blows produce something akin to sea- 
sickness. 

With matter annihilated because it never did 
exist, Mrs. Eddy devotes many pages to explain- 
ing what it is. In the Glossary of "Science and 
Health" she gives her "spiritual Definition" of 
words. The dictionaries are the products of 
"mortal minds," and therefore not to be trusted. 
So she serves us with her "spiritual dictionary". 
Her spiritual definition for matter is, "mortal 
mind, that of which immortal mind takes no cog- 
nizance". Her spiritual definition for mortal 
mind is "nothing claiming to be something"; 
"error creating other errors; — material senses; — 
that which neither exists in Science nor can be 
recognized by spiritual sense ; sin, sickness and 
death." 



216 FACTS AND FABLES 

She "spiritually" illumines this "matter" propo- 
sition in this wise : "Brain is only matter within 
the skull, and is believed to be mind only through 
error and delusion. Examine the form of mat- 
ter called brains, and you find no mind therein. 
Hence the logical sequence that there is in reality 
neither matter nor mortal mind, but that the self- 
testimony of the physical senses is false." 1 

Now, my dear Goliath, having stopped the 
rapid flight of this rock, how do you feel? How 
many of them could you stand in succession? 
The "Scientists" feel awe-struck, sitting at the 
feet of such learning. 

Kindly take a tonic and stand this volley: 
"What, then, are the so-called forces of matter? 
They are the phenomena of mortal mind, and 
matter and mortal mind are one." 2 

"The qualities of matter are but qualities of 
mortal mind. Change the mind and the quality 
changes. Destroy the belief and the quality dis- 
appears." (Unity of Good.) 

"The so-called material senses, are found up- 
on examination to be mortally mental, instead of 
material. Reduced to its proper denomination, 
matter is mortal mind; yet, strictly speaking, 
there is no mortal mind." 3 

"Here comes in the summary of the whole mat- 
ter, wherewith we started: that God is All, and 

i S. & H. 

3 Unity of Good, p. 35. 
2 Unity of Good, p. 35. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 217 

God is spirit ; therefore there is nothing but spirit ; 
and consequently there is no matter." * 

Are you still with us, Goliath ? 

Another rock from her sling gives a jar to 
the almost universal doctrine of the indwelling 
and parenthood of God. She says: "All life is 
spirit, and spirit can never dwell in its antagonist, 
matter. Life, therefore, is deathless, because God 
cannot be the opposite of Himself. In Christian 
Science there is no matter; hence matter neither 
lives nor dies. To the senses matter appears to 
both live and die, and these phenomena appear 
to go on ad infinitum) but such a theory implies 
perpetual disagreement with Spirit." 2 

To most readers the absurdity of the above 
dogmatic statements is apparent. Take the first 
sentence — "Spirit can never dwell in its an- 
tagonist, matter." Who made spirit and matter 
antagonists? No person acquainted with logical 
processes of reasoning. This was born in Mrs. 
Eddy's own madhouse while fighting with her 
devil, whose identification we will soon give. 
Who knows the ultimate of either spirit or mat- 
ter to be able to dogmatize thus? No person of 
any degree of scientific knowledge presumes to 
so dogmatize. How would she reply? By 
simply saying: "I am endowed with spiritual un- 
derstanding. I look out from within the Holy 
of Holies, from the very fountain of Knowledge. 
You forget my 'genus' — who I am and from 

i Unity of Good, p. 34. 
2 Unity of Good, p. 41. 



218 FACTS AND FABLES 

whence I came — why is one chosen to voice the 
hidden things of God if she is to be limited ?" 

Listen to this "prophesy," which appeared in 
the Christian Science Journal May, 1885 : "She 
existed from the beginning before all ages, and 
will not cease to exist throughout all ages ; it is she 
which shall create in Heaven a light which shall 
never be extinguished ; she shall rise in the midst 
of her people, and shall be blessed over all who 
are blessed of God, for she shall open the doors 
of the East and the desired of Nations shall 
appear." 

When the "Scientist" runs into one of her dog- 
matic inconsistencies, and his understanding fails 
him, he rushes to such sign-boards of herself, and 
again regains his "understanding." In the third 
sentence of the paragraph she says : "In Christian 
Science there is no matter, hence matter neither 
lives nor dies. To the senses matter appears to 
both live and die." Here she misleads the un- 
suspecting reader, making it appear that all out- 
side of "Christian Science" impart life to matter. 
Millions of Christians have no such view. There 
is a verv small school which thus theorize. She 
misrepresents the prevailing thought of the world, 
with apparent intention. The prevailing concep- 
tion is that life in multitudinous forms expresses 
itself through the medium of matter. Death is 
but the disintegration of the material part of this 
union. Millions upon millions of the most en- 
lightened people of the world believe in the im- 
mortality of life. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 219 

To read Mrs. Eddy one would think that 
"Christian Science" alone taught the immortality 
of life. But, my dear reader, she has to be 
watched, for she puts her brand on the best there 
is, and obliterates the former markings. Since 
she delegated to herself the authority to change 
the Lord's Prayer, — the Psalm of the shepherd, 
and with a fiat brushed aside the Lord's Supper 
and instituted, instead, her breakfast, we should 
not expect of her an adherence to any of the com- 
mands of the Decalogue. 

Mrs. Eddy, by her fundamental propositions, 
her very corner-stones, her own property, makes 
God and His idea — man — all there is; and rele- 
gates the whole of this phenomenal world, the 
myriads of mighty suns of the Milky Way, to a 
great nightmare, a mad dream of the "mortal 
mind." Now her favorite god, the god of her 
fundamental propositions, knows nothing about 
this great nightmare, or the wonderful creations 
of this dreamer. 

We have previously shown by her own words 
that her "idea-man" is nothing more than a reflec- 
tion, having no life or power, and that her god 
does not dwell in his idea. We will now let her 
complete the conclusion of such a god. She says : 
"Separated from man, who expresses soul, spirit 
(god) would be a nonentity." (S. & H., p. 477, 
1909 ed.) 

That rock shot backwards. I am the chief of 
sinners for peeping through the fence and seeing 
where it hit. 



220 FACTS AND FABLES 

Having thus annihilated her god, — with her 
help, — let us next seek out this wonderful 
dreamer. 

He is the source of all her troubles. He is the 
creator of all this pulsing life, which to her is the 
sum of evils. He has flung the mighty suns into 
fiery existence; peopled their satellites with liv- 
ing, loving beings; spread over their hills and 
dales a blanket of throbbing verdure; filled the 
air with winged songsters to cheer and make 
glad. Who is this dreamer? Her answer is, with 
bated breath, "mortal mind". She has destroyed 
him many times with her mighty sling, but like 
her purple gown which seemed to be perpetually 
renewed, he is ever present. Mortal mind, mat- 
ter, evil, error are one, as we saw by her "spiritual 
definitions". Turning again to this illuminating 
source, we are informed that all these are the 
devil. He it is who does all this creating. Her 
scientific definition says that the devil is "evil, a 
lie, error, neither corporeality or mind; the oppo- 
site of Truth; a belief in sin, sickness and death; 
animal magnetism of hypnotism; the lust of the 
flesh, a wicked mind, self-made or created by a 
tribal god and put into the opposite of mind, 
termed matter, thence to reproduce a mortal uni- 
verse, including man, not after the image and 
likeness of Spirit, but after its own image." 

In the last chapter of "Science and Health" — 
the Apocalypse — Mrs. Eddy put her brand upon 
all the wonderful visions of John, spoken of in 
the twelfth chapter of Revelation. She had much 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 221 

to say concerning the birth of the child "the spir- 
itual idea" the book "Science and Health". With 
much dramatic effort the travail of the woman is 
described, showing her peril as the red dragon 
fights to devour the child when it is born. She 
says: "Great is the idea and the travail porten- 
tious." 

I do not wonder that the "travail was porten- 
tious," considering the dark misshapen object 
that she gave birth to; for the chief "idea" that 
sprang from this portentious travail was her "Ma- 
licious Animal Magnetism," "belief in matter," 
the "Christian Science" devil. 

This creation is distinctively her own, and like 
the "stray" horse of my boyhood, has only one 
brand upon it — her own — and finds lodgment 
only under the cover of the night of superstition 
and ignorance. 

We shall let Mrs. Eddy describe him. Read 
with some care her words of "spiritual learning," 
the kind that made her forget all the profane 
learning of her earlier years, as she tells us in 
"Miscellanies". She says: 

"My first plank in the platform of Christian 
Science is as follows: There is no substance in 
matter ; matter is mortal error ; matter is the un- 
real." 

"Matter and evil are unreal." 

"But, say you, is a stone spiritual? To erring 
mortal sense? No! But to unerring spiritual 
sense, it is a small manifestation of mind. Take 



222 FACTS AND FABLES 

away the mortal sense of substance, and the stone 
itself would disappear." 

"How can I believe there is no such thing as 
matter, when I weigh over two hundred pounds 
and carry about this weight daily?" "Answer: 
By learning that matter is but manifest mortal 
mind. You entertain an adipose belief in your- 
self as substance." 

"The only evidence of the existence of a mortal 
man, or of a material state or universe, is gath- 
ered from the five personal senses. This de- 
lusive evidence (the evidence of the five senses) 
Science has dethroned by repeated proofs of 
falsity." (P. 64.) 

"Jesus walking on the waves proved the fallacy 
of the theory that matter is substance." (P. 74.) 
"There is no matter." "Nothing we can say or 
believe regarding matter is true, except that mat- 
ter is unreal." 

"Matter will finally be proven to be nothing 
but a mortal illusion." (S. & H.) "What you 
call matter was originally primitive error in solu- 
tion." (S. &H.) 

Call on one of your "Scientist" friends for 
some help on this last "rock" from her sling. 
This is the kind that "silences will-power." This 
next rock has a little of her devil's brimstone in 
it : "You say, 'I have burned my finger.' This is 
an exact statement more exact than you suppose ; 
for Mortal Mind and not matter burns it." (S. 
&H.) 

"Trees, plants and flowers are ideas of mind. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 223 

Mind multiplies them, and the product can be 
only mental." Her devil has some beautiful 
dreams. What a magician he is! What a 
creator ! 

She says : "Close your eyes and you may dream 
that you see a flower, that you touch and smell it. 
Thus you learn that a flower is a product of mind, 
a formation of thought, rather than of matter." 
(S. &H.) 

According to Mrs. Eddy all children are the 
evil product of her devil. No wonder she did 
not want her own child. 

"Generation rests on no sexual basis." (S. 
&H.) 

"A material body is a mortal belief." (S. & H. ) 

"Bones have only the substantiality of thought 
which formed them. They are only an appear- 
ance, a subjective state of mortal mind. The so- 
called substance of bone is formed first by the 
parent's mind, through self -division. Soon the 
child becomes a separate individualized thought, 
another mortal mind (devil), which speedily 
takes possession of itself." (S. & H.) 

In the quotation just given I added the word 
devil after mortal mind, to remind the reader 
that mortal mind and devil are one. It is no won- 
der that Christian Scientists give birth to few 
children. 

I have wished to give a quotation from "Chris- 
tion Science in the Light of Holy Scriptures," p. 
20, by J. M. Haldeman. 1 I will therefore let 

i Fleming H. Revell Co., Publishers. 



224 FACTS AND FABLES 

him make a summary of the quotations given 
above. He says : 

"Actually speaking there is no sex, neither male 
nor female; neither infant nor grown person; 
neither youth nor old age. 

"The moving, acting things we call beasts and 
which we distinguish by names, the domestic ani- 
mals, the birds that fly and sing, are nothing more 
than constructions of mind produced by the fal- 
lacy of false belief; they have no reality. 

"Not only so, the earth on which we stand, with 
its land and rivers and seas; the forests which 
cover the earth, the harvests in the field, the fruit 
in the orchards, the beautiful forms of flowers 
with their refreshing fragrance, none of these 
things have consistency beyond the region of the 
mind. When we touch them we are as much de- 
ceived as when with our eyes we gaze upon them. 

"The heavens above us are not real, the shapes 
of clouds by day, the stars by night, are unreal; 
all these things are as unreal as the feet by which 
we walk, the eyes through which we see, the 
hands with which we touch and take. There is 
no matter, and bodily form in any direction is 
but a fancy, a deception of mortal mind. 

"But since there are thousands who have been 
led to accept this system; and since it comes in 
the name of God's blessed Christ, claims a "thus 
saith the Lord" for its authority, and goes so 
far in its bravery or foolery as to bind its own 
textbook between the same covers with the Holy 
Bible, it is necessary that it should be met point 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 225 

by point from that Holy Writ; and that in the 
light of Holy Scripture its more than folly, its 
effrontery and bold denial of the word of God 
may be seen. ,, 

When the "Scientists" build a great church 
structure they employ an expert structural en- 
gineer, a mortal mind, a devil, who knows the 
laws of the material, and who can put up a build- 
ing that will stand the sweeps of another devil's 
blasts. They want a structure that will not 
tumble down upon their own mortal bodies, while 
telling how their bodies, which do not exist, were 
healed of every known disease. 

They even offer to heal your mortal body — 
always for money, a part of the evil belief that 
they are never known to eschew. They are not 
to be blamed for this material appetite ; for their 
"Voice of God to this age" had it as her chief 
inspiration, and has handed it on to her faithful 
as a divine impulse. Even her lawyers, while 
rounding up some of this material, were guided 
by "Divine Love." 

In "Unity of Good", p. 52, Mrs. Eddy says: 
"What say you of evil? God is not the so-called 
ego of evil; for evil, as a supposition, is the father 
of itself, of the material world, the flesh and the 
devil. From this falsehood arise the self destroy- 
ing elements of this world, its unkind forces, its 
tempests, lightnings, earthquakes, poisons, rabid 
beasts, fatal reptiles, and mortals." 

"Why are earth and mortals so elaborate in 
beauty, color and form, if God has no part in 



226 FACTS AND FABLES 

them? By the law of opposites. The most beau- 
tiful blossom is often poisonous, and the most 
beautiful mansion is sometimes the home of vice. 
The senses, not God, soul, form the condition of 
beautiful evil, and the supposed modes of self- 
conscious matter, which make a beautiful lie. 
Now a lie takes its pattern from Truth, by revers- 
ing Truth. So evil and all its forms are inverted 
good. God never made them; but the lie must 
say He made them, or it would not be evil. Be- 
ing a lie, it would be truthful to call itself a lie; 
and by calling the knowledge of evil good, and 
greatly to be desired, it constitutes the lie an 
evil." 

On the same page as the above she reminds 
us of what she has given us, for she says : "The 
Science of God and man is the Holy Ghost, which 
reveals and sustains the unbroken and eternal 
harmony of both God and the universe. It is the 
Kingdom of Heaven." 

Of all this wonderful creation you, your chil- 
dren, your lover, your friends, the rocks and hills, 
the ebbing seas, the mighty suns and flying nebula, 
the fields of waving grain, the flowers that de- 
light your eyes, all these are evil- — the creations 
of "the serpent," and God is ignorant of it all. 
Read again from "Unity of Good," page 54. 
She says : 

"If God knows sin, even as a false claimant, 
then acquaintance with that claimant becomes 
legitimate to mortals, and this knowledge would 
not be forbidden ; but God forbade man to know 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 227 

evil at the very beginning, when Satan held it 
up before man as something desirable and a dis- 
tinct addition to human wisdom, because the 
knowledge of evil would make man a God, — a 
representation that God both knew and admitted 
the dignity of evil. 

"Which is right — God who condemned the 
knowledge of sin and disowned its acquaintance, 
or the serpent who pushed that claim with the 
glittering audacity of diabolical and sinuous 
logic." 

Now my summary of all the rocks from Mrs. 
Eddy's automatic sling, flung at us from her 
"kingdom of heaven", is given "with the glitter- 
ing audacity of diabolical and sinuous logic", 
namely : 

The god of Mrs. Eddy's fundamental proposi- 
tions — her corner stones, bearing her own marks 
— is not good, not a God of love, because he has 
no creation to love, or that can love in return. He 
is but a cold abstraction. The "Christian Science" 
devil — the mortal mind — is the creator of this 
pulsing, ebbing, beautiful life, which to her was 
a nightmare to be escaped; and were it not for 
the native sanity of her followers — a sanity not 
acquired since becoming "scientists" — our insane 
hospitals would be overflowing with them, rav- 
ing in their delusion that "mortal mind", Mali- 
cious Animal Magnetism, the devil, was inflicting 
unbearable tortures upon them. But thanks to the 
balance wheel, — which they brought with them 
from the sane teachings of society, — which they 



228 FACTS AND FABLES 

try to destroy but cannot — we are saved the 
grewsome charge. 

In the preceding chapters I have shown to what 
conclusions Mrs. Eddy's favorite propositions 
lead. I have shown what is distinctively her own ; 
and if we recall her life and deeds, we will find 
that this cold and selfish philosophy is quite in 
keeping with her own character. Her philosophy 
is barren of Christian warmth. It will not de- 
velop the Christian graces in her followers, but 
will take away from many of them certain Chris- 
tian elements they had before. 

I must remind the reader that when a writer 
lays down his fundamental propositions, and says 
"on these I build my foundations," that it is to 
these that we are to make him conform when we 
find him wandering astray. Now, this we shall 
require of Mrs. Eddy. She goes astray in almost 
every paragraph of her writings. Instead of at 
once charging her with mental obtuseness, let us 
try it out in the light of her predominant char- 
acteristics. 

The most predominant characteristic of her life* 
was greed; a grasping nature. This characteris- 
tic must not be lost sight of in getting at the 
cause and effect in her system of philosophy. 
She seems to have been utterly devoid of shame, 
for she did not hesitate to put her grotesque brand 
upon the highest sentiments of the highest races 
of the world. 

Mrs. Eddy was not a religious enthusiast, not 
a zealot. She was a designing business woman, 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 229 

first, last, and all the time. She loved power and 
laid her plans to acquire it. She wanted to domi- 
neer, and wanted nothing short of idolatrous wor- 
ship from her followers. She knew the power 
of fervent religious belief and sought to instil it 
into her constituency. If she could make zealots 
of them her business would not be wanting in 
commercial results. No person can show that her 
whole system was not built on the dollar basis. 

Show to me a person whose system— whatever 
it may be — is built on the dollar basis, and if it 
is successful to the extent of millions, I will wager 
that that person will never become a religious 
zealot ; his religion will always be secondary and 
held in check by the practical influence of his 
money. 

I insist that this was true of Mrs. Eddy. I 
find no evidence to the contrary, but much in sup- 
port of the conclusion. 

Your "Scientist" friends will point you to many 
expressions of love and warmth in Mrs. Eddy's 
writings, and in utter ignorance and innocence 
believe that she is the sole author of them. It 
is my duty to show that these embellishments do 
not belong to her systems, but are borrowed, with- 
out your leave, from the common Christian 
tenets and made to hide the dry, soulless bones 
of her philosophy. 

It is these graces, that are not her own, that 
have given a living power to her system, for thou- 
sands have believed that they were conforming 



230 FACTS AND FABLES 

to the teachings of the New Testament when fol- 
lowing her doctrines. 

When once she got a taste of success in in- 
fluencing the innocent, she became ambitious 
without bounds. At first she overrated herself 
with some caution, but soon found that certain 
people wanted to idealize their leader ; and, being 
quick to discern an advantage, she came to feed 
their idolatry more openly, and finally without 
limit. It soon dawned upon her that she had a 
rival that she must use, must praise and teach 
her people to adore, but that she must outstrip, 
or her influence would be limited. 

This rival was Jesus. Since most of her fol- 
lowers were from one of the many Christian 
churches, it would not do to offend them, so she 
gives with much ado the kiss of betrayal and 
makes off with his position in their hearts. 

She makes use of Jesus and the place He holds 
in the hearts of men in open contradiction to her 
fundamental propositions. She contradicts every 
sane interpretation that He put upon His own acts 
and life, and that of every other person who has 
presumed to enlarge upon the life of the Master. 

She early acquired a hatred of all the Chris- 
tian denominations, just as she did for all of those 
first students who grew weary of abuses and pay- 
ing tithes to her. When they no longer served 
her ends they became her enemies. 

She therefore ordered her followers to come 
out from among them, and be separate. Now 
to make this more effectual she overturned all 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 231 

the Christian doctrines held in common by the 
different churches. At an early period she per- 
formed a baptism without water. There are no 
baptismal fonts in Christian Science churches. 
"Baptism," she says, is a "purification from all 
error." Now since error is mortal mind, belief 
in matter, Methodism, Presbyterianism, Congre- 
gationalism, etc., one can see how far reaching is 
her anarchy. 

The Lord's supper she dismissed as a "dead 
rite," and instituted in its place a breakfast. She 
explained that Christ had come the second time 
in "Christian Science" through her, a higher 
representative than through Jesus; saying that 
"If a friend be with us, why need we memorials 
of that friend?" She played with words to suit 
her fancy or purse. She said : "Our bread which 
cometh down from heaven is Truth. Our cup is 
the cross, our wine the inspiration of Love." 
Now she brought the highest Truth, she taught, 
and was the channel of the inspiration of Love — 
the "Mother Principle of God." 

In using the words and works of Jesus Christ, 
Mrs. Eddy says in effect : "Jesus the man repre- 
sented the Christ up to the extent of His efficiency. 
As the Christ incarnate in this — a higher age — it 
is my special privilege to use as I see fit whatever 
the Christ expressed through His lesser medium 
nineteen hundred years ago. To me alone be- 
longs the right of interpretation." 

On this promise Mrs. Eddy goes forth with 
her sling and knocks over everything that had 



232 FACTS AND FABLES 

become standard with Christian people; sets up 
her own structures and puts the C. S. brand upon 
the whole. She then gives her "spiritual defi* 
nition" of the word church, which to her "Scien- 
tists" reads all other denominations out of the 
Temple. 

Her great fight is against the belief in matter, 
which simply resolves itself into a disbelief in 
her would-be divine mission, and her contra- 
dictory teachings. At first her devil was confined 
to Kennedy, Spofford, and others who withdrew 
from her personal support; but at last expanded 
to take in everybody who will not come under 
her arrogant rule. She therefore tells us that 
"all outside of Christian Science is unstable 
error". Error is mortal mind, mortal mind is 
the devil, thus the identity and pedigree of all 
those who do not bear her brand. 

The beginning of her career as a "rustler" was 
when she kept as her own that which Quimby 
had allowed her to use. In a few years she be- 
trayed him and even threw discredit upon her 
benefactor. This very thing she has done with 
Jesus in the most brazen, shameless and offensive 
way. 

Compared to this, what a trifle it was when she, 
through her lawyers and agents, betrayed her 
first church members, and by foreclosure took 
away from them the land upon which the Mother 
Church stands today. It was a complete betrayal 
under the guise of benevolence; for the gift to 
the church again was not a gift at all, because 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 233 

not only the land but the valuable buildings be- 
longed to her and not to the congregation. The 
people furnished the money and she owned it all. 
From her first followers she took all their author- 
ity and left them as dependents, subject to her 
arbitrary will. 

Mr. Peabody is familiar with the facts in these 
betrayals. He says in the "Religio-Medical Mas- 
querade", p. 160: 

"These wonderful beneficences, which fairly 
startle Mr. Hanna, and which cost Mrs. Eddy 
$5,002, and Hanna says were 'worth' $90,000, 
left her with a right, under certain circumstances, 
to take absolute possession of the land and the 
church, which cost her nothing and which cost 
others over two hundred thousand dollars, guar- 
anteed to her pleasant and permanent business 
quarters without expense of any kind, gave her 
complete control, amounting to ownership, of 
The Christian Science Journal, and made her the 
dictator and authoritative head, if she wished to 
be, of the business end of "Christian Science" as 
conducted at the business quarters of the Chris- 
tian Science Publishing Company, of Boston. 
This was Mrs. Eddy's own benefit from her out- 
lay of $5,002, and yet the Honorable Septimus 
J. Hanna, with upturned eyes, piously exclaims: 

" 'Let us endeavor to lift up our hearts in 
thankfulness to God for His goodness to us and 
our cause and to His servant, our Mother in 
Israel, for these evidences of a generosity and 
self-sacrifice that appeals to our deepest sense of 



234 FACTS AND FABLES 

gratitude, even while surpassing our comprehen- 



sion/ " 



In a published statement Mr. Farlow has said : 

"As to Mrs. Eddy's wealth, I want to say she 
has given away, during the past five years, more 
than double the sum total of the entire profits 
from the sale of her books from their first pub- 
lication to the present time. ,, 

Mr. Peabody says : "I denounce this statement 
of Mr. Alfred Farlow's as utterly false, and I 
defy him to name the beneficiaries of these hun- 
dreds of thousands of dollars he says his em- 
ployer has given away. I challenge this official 
prevaricator of Mrs. Eddy's religio-commercial 
enterprise to give the public the particulars of 
these alleged gifts. He cannot give them. They 
do not exist, and his falsehood is only one of 
many fabrications boldly put forth to bolster the 
tottering structure that has so long afforded him 
and his colleagues in fraud a comfortable finan- 
cial refuge." 

Just as Mrs. Eddy's first followers were blinded 
by her "benefactions", while she robbed them of 
every vestige of their power, so are the unwary 
blinded by her use of Christian teachings, the fine 
sentiments of the New Testament, while she fas- 
tens upon them the dry bones of her philosophy, 
and the fears of her obsession. Once held over 
the purgatory of her mania, few are ever able 
to free themselves from it. 

Of all the churches and benevolent organiza- 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 235 

tions throughout the land, she can bring herself 
to use such words as these : 

"If proper ward were kept over that lazar 
house, that dismal cell and slaughter house of 
infamy, mortal mind, the broods of evil which 
manifest it could be cleared out." 

Such anarchy can not help but instil hatred 
into the hearts of her people. The expression of 
cheer and good will manifest in the "Scientists" 
gatherings is but outward. If you do not believe 
it, just begin a campaign of enlightening the pub- 
lic on The Facts and Fables in Christian Science, 
and you will discover the Eddy character. 

One of the greatest banes of her false teach- 
ings is to be found in her attitude toward sin. 
Is it not possible that this doctrine sprang in 
part from her own un forgiven sins, making an 
easy escape from them? She was not a woman 
of prayer, for she said: "According to Divine 
Law, sin and suffering are not cancelled by re- 
pentance or pardon." She would not leave the 
words in the Lord's prayer alone, "forgive us our 
debts as we forgive our debtors", but changed 
them into the irrelevant words, "and love is re- 
flected in love." These words impose no duty, 
thereby nullifying the injunction to do unto others 
as you would have them do unto you. Her his- 
tory shows she had little regard for the Golden 
Rule. 

How do the "Scientists" square the matter of 
sin with themselves? Simply by denying that 
it is a sin, if they follow this leader's teachings. 



236 FACTS AND FABLES 

Again I insist that it is the character and sanity 
that they brought with them that is the balance 
wheel that saves them from running amuck. 
Their leader says: "Destroy the thought of sin, 
sickness and death, and you destroy their exist- 
ence." Now compare with this the promise that 
God is not cognizant of sin in the world, and you 
have pure anarchy. It destroys social respon- 
sibility, fellow concern, love, if you will, that 
word that she uses so much. 

It resolves itself to this : A "Scientist" can com- 
mit any act, and destroy the consequences of it 
by denying the act and its consequences. The 
cardinal sin in "Christian Science" lies not in 
doing the act, but in believing that the act is a 
sin, and that the act has inflicted harm, suffering, 
or death upon the victim. I ask, could a more 
soul destroying premise be given than this corner- 
stone of "Christian Science"? 

The "Christian Science" of Mrs. Eddy's cor- 
ner-stones and fundamental propositions is not 
Christianity; it is an open repudiation of Chris- 
tianity. 

Since Mrs. Eddy makes suffering, pain, and 
want nothing more than mortal mind, evil or the 
devil, perhaps this explains why she and her fol- 
lowers have no charities. It would be a sin to 
acknowledge such needs, and a greater sin to 
contribute to their alleviation. Here let me quote 
from Mark Twain, who points out that "Chris- 
tian Science" has no charities to support. 

In Mark Twain's Christian Science (Harper, 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 237 

1907) there is an admirable account of this 
wealth. He estimates the profit -on. "Science- and 
Health" at 700%. It is sixty times more costly 
than a copy of the New Testament. He points 
out, also, that "Christian Science" has no chari- 
ties to support: "No, nor even to contribute to. 
One searches in vain the Trust's advertisements, 
and the utterances of its organs, for any sugges- 
tion that it spend a penny on orphans, widows, 
discharged prisoners, hospitals, ragged schools, 
night missions, city missions, libraries, old peo- 
ple's homes, or any other object that appeals to 
a human being's purse through his heart. 
Churches that give have nothing to hide. I have 
hunted, hunted, and hunted, by correspondence 
and otherwise, and have not yet got upon the 
track of a farthing that the Trust has spent upon 
any worthy object. Nothing makes a scientist 
so uncomfortable as to ask him if he knows of a 
case where Christian Science has spent money on 
a benevolence, either among its own adherents 
or elsewhere." 

There are material things the Christian Scien- 
tists do contribute material money to. They are 
proud of their church buildings and contribute 
generously toward them. It pays to make a show- 
ing, since they are in business with their wares to 
sell just as any firm of doctors, or a department 
store. They deny the existence of the building 
as anything more than a thought, and explain 
away the inconsistency by quoting from the Scrip- 



238 FACTS AND FABLES 

tures, saying, "suffer it to be so now." That 
phrase helps them out many times. 

Mrs. Eddy has never attempted nor has any 
of her apologists, to explain by quoting Scripture, 
or by argument, how it comes that, since her 
fundamental propositions make God and his ideas 
all-inclusive, perfect and complete, there can be 
a mortal mind, or a vile dreamer. She goes to 
some length to show that there cannot be more 
than one God and his Perfect ideas. She tells us 
that the dreamer does not exist, only seems to 
exist; but she fails to tell us who, outside her 
all-inclusive god and his ideas, does this seem- 
ing. It takes a mind to dream and have illusions 
and hallucinations. Her pen point spits fire 
against this dreamer, that she says does not exist, 
and she goes forth with her sling and hurls brim- 
stone, hot from the cauldron of her hatred, at 
the mighty dreamer. 

Is it not apparent why she forbids her fol- 
lowers to discuss these things? Is it not plain 
why she did away with Christian Science preach- 
ers? Is it not clear why the Readers may not an- 
swer questions, or attempt to interpret the tangled 
passages for the congregation ? How long would 
such senseless ravings last in the hands of a bunch 
of children in the eighth grade? These things 
can only be saved from the waste basket by the 
slavish adherence to her by-laws, and the super- 
stitious belief that she was the "Voice of God to 
this Age". 



CHAPTER X. 

MARRIAGE — A CHRISTIAN SCIENCE SIN. 

I hope some day Theodore Roosevelt will ex- 
press himself on Mrs. Eddy's teachings on mar- 
riage. It will be interesting to count the strenu- 
ous adjectives that he will be impelled to employ. 
On this subject no other person has ever spoken 
so insanely and offensively as Mrs. Eddy. 

Her bitterness against the body, matter and 
man exhibits itself with a sort of hiss in her 
treatment of this wonderful subject. 

She brushes the words of Jesus aside and over- 
rides Him with offensive authority. He said: 
"For this cause shall a man leave his father and 
mother and shall cleave to his wife; and they 
twain shall be one flesh." Jesus blessed little 
children but she by her philosophy curses them 
as imps of Satan. 

"These words of St. Matthew," she says, 
'have special application to 'Christian Science/ 
namely, Tt is not good to marry/ " 

She asks the question, "Is marriage nearer 
right than celibacy ?" and answers: "Human 
knowledge inculcates that it is, while Science in- 
dicates that it is not." 

Marriages are never solemnized in "Christian 

239 



240 FACTS AND FABLES 

Science" churches. She frowns upon the insti- 
tution as she does upon burials. 

She does not prohibit marriage, for nature 
would not stand for that and there would be a 
corresponding commercial loss; but she says 
vicious things against it and then covers her rav- 
ings with a borrowed garment, "Suffer it to be 
so now." 

Read carefully the following mischievous lan- 
guage from the Oracle of Christian Science : 

"Until time matures human growth, marriage 
and progeny will continue unprohibited in Chris- 
tian Science." (Misc. Writings, p. 286.) 

"To abolish marriage at this period, and main- 
tain morality and generation, would put ingenuity 
to ludicrous shifts; yet this is possible in Science 
(Christian Science), although it is today proble- 
matic." (Misc. Writings, p. 286.) 

"Human nature has bestowed on a wife the 
right to become a mother; but if the wife es- 
teems not this a privilege, by mutual consent, ex- 
alted and increased affections, she may win a 
higher." (Misc. Writings, p. 289.) 

"The time cometh when marriage will be a 
union of hearts, when husbands and wives will 
love one another more sincerely than at present." 
(S. & TL, p. 274, 74th ed.) 

"Furthermore, the time also cometh of which. 
Jesus spake when He declared that in the resur- 
rection there should be no more marrying or 
giving in marriage, but mortals should be as 
the angels." 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 241 

"The union of hearts,'' therefore, is but a pre- 
lude to the time when there will neither be marry- 
ing nor giving in marriage. " (S. & H.) 

"Then shall soul rejoice in its own, wherein 
passion hath no part. Then white-robed purity 
shall unite masculine Wisdom and feminine Love 
in spiritual understanding and perpetual union. ,, 
(S.&H.,p.2 74 .) 

"Until it is learned that generation rests on no 
sexual basis, let marriage continue." 

"Spirit will ultimately claim its own, and the 
voice of physical senses be forever hushed. ,, (S. 
& H., p. 274, 74th ed.) 

"I hereby state, in unmistakable language, the 
following statute in the morals of Christian 
Science: A man or woman having voluntarily 
entered into wedlock, and accepted the claims of 
the marriage covenant, is held in Christian Sci- 
ence as morally bound to fulfill all the claims 
growing out of this contract, unless such claims 
are relinquished by mutual consent of both par- 
ties, or this contract is legally dissolved. ,, (Misc. 
Writings, p. 297.) 

I wish to give a few paragraphs from "Chris- 
tian Science, Its Faith and Its Founder," by 
Lyman P. Powell : 

"I could give instances — for I have made in- 
quiries far and wide — in which families that 
have for long years known only happiness and 
concord have suddenly become the prey of dis- 
cord and division, in which the love of husbands 
for wives and fathers for children has dissolved 



242 FACTS AND FABLES 

into an unfortunate aloofness, in which wives 
have ceased, except in name, to live as wives and 
mothers, have come to think of children as mill- 
stones around their necks, in which daughters 
have ceased to be daughters except before the 
world, and sisters have separated for all time 
from sisters who declined to go with them into 
Christian Science, in which lovers have broken 
their engagement and friends have given up their 
lifelong friendship for no reason save a differ- 
ence in the point of view concerning what is 
nothing after all except a problem in pure meta- 
physics. 

"In 1 88 1 we find her writing: 'The time 
cometh when there will be no marrying or giving 
in marriage — soul will ultimately claim its own, 
and the voice of personal sense be hushed.' In 
1888 she states that 'marriage is the only legal 
and moral provision for generation among the 
higher species"; but then she neutralizes her 
words with the hint that marriage will no longer 
be when people learn that 'generation rests on no 
sexual basis.' Ten years later she remarks that 
reproduction is due to belief, and in illustration 
later adds : 'The propagation of their species by 
butterfly, bee and moth, without the customary 
presence of male companions, is a discovery cor- 
roborative of Science of Mind/ 

"Troubled by the storm of criticism, in the 
latest editions of Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy 
sets herself at the correction of the reader's true 
impression of her views. She vows in 1906 that 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 243 

the only person she has ever known who believed 
in agamogenesis 'was suffering from incipient in- 
sanity/ and hints that she is not that person. 
But it is difficult to take Mrs. Eddy seriously, 
when in the next paragraph appears the sentence 
that 'proportionately as human generation ceases, 
the unbroken links of eternal harmonious being 
will be spiritually discerned,' when later in the 
book there reappears the analogy above of the 
butterfly and bee and moth, and when she states 
outright that 'to no longer marry or be given in 
marriage' does not mean 'race suicide.' 

"But if we have failed to grasp the meaning of 
Mrs. Eddy's words, if we are to be guided solely 
by her latest, not her earlier utterances, and to 
assume that the correction of some passages im- 
plies the correction of all, if Mrs. Eddy does 
believe with heart and soul in the perpetuation of 
the species sacramentally through marriage in the 
years to come as in these ages past, why does not 
the great organ in the Mother Church at Boston 
more frequently peal out the wedding march? 
Why is no Christian Scientist specially commis- 
sioned to solemnize a marriage? Why is the 
church manual, which is so explicit in its direc- 
tions on all other themes, silent as to marriage, 
except for this one ominous note: "If a Chris- 
tian Scientist is to be married, the ceremony shall 
be performed by a clergyman (of some other 
fold) who is legally authorized? And why has 
not the Mother Church in Boston, with its seat- 
ing capacity of five thousand and its resident 



244 FACTS AND FABLES 

membership doubtless larger, made provision for 
a larger Sunday school than one of two hundred 
and fifty members ?" 

Mrs. Eddy talks much about love, but she did 
not herself live love. It is not to be wondered 
at that she discourages propagation, when we re- 
call her own unnatural attitude toward her own 
son. This is but an illustration of her true 
philosophy throughout, which proves itself to be 
a true commentary on her life and character. She 
tried marriage three times, and speaks as one 
whose own marriage had left a feeling of re- 
vulsion. 

In all of Mrs. Eddy's teachings there is a 
noticeable absence of "love one another." She 
has much to say about the love of God, but these 
are empty phrases, when uttered apart from the 
love of those about us. The words of St. John 
apply here: "He that loveth not his brother 
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom 
he hath not seen." We may follow this with the 
pertinent statement that any body of people who 
have no charities, who "pass by on the other side" 
and refuse to see and succor human suffering 
and need, do not love God with the love of the 
Christian heart. 

A "Christian Science" woman whose daughter 
was recently married explained to her neighbor 
across the fence that she was not afraid of her 
daughter having any children, for she and her 
daughter were demonstrating over it. To this 
benighted woman children were an evil to be 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 245 

eschewed. Her daughter was born before she 
became a "Scientist," and when free from such 
pernicious teachings. She had experienced the 
glory of motherhood, but so blighting is this 
new disease that the instinct of the race has been 
taken from her, as the instinct of motherhood dis- 
appears under certain surgical operations too fre- 
quently performed in these artificial days. 

These sentiments by Mrs. Eddy are soulless: 
"God is man's only real relative on earth and in 
heaven." "Would existence be a blank to you 
without personal friends?" "This vacuum must 
be filled with Principle instead of person." "When 
our friends pass from our sight and we lament, 
that lamentation is needless and causeless." 

She could look upon the heart of her husband 
in the hands of the physician, and immediately 
after seeing it write a most vicious attack upon 
the several persons whom she charged with his 
death by arsenic mentally administered. 

Viewing children in the light of Mrs. Eddy's 
fundamental Propositions, her foundation stones, 
her own property, what do we have? In this 
light they are not the children of God. He does 
not even know of their existence. He therefore 
does not love them, hear them, or care for them. 
The words of the Master, "Suffer little children 
to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of 
such is the kingdom of heaven," are brushed 
aside as errors of the "mortal Jesus." 

More than this, according to these premises, 
these little ones of the kingdom of heaven are 



246 FACTS AND FABLES 

the creations of mortal mind, the Christian Sci- 
ence devil Of Eve's exclamation at the birth of 
Cain, "I have gotten a man from the Lord," Mrs. 
Eddy says : "This supposes God to be the author 
of sin, and sin's progeny/' 

Social anarchy lurks in such vicious teachings. 
If her followers can take with some tight bot- 
tomed vessel all of Mrs. Eddy's teachings, to 
what vicious length would they not go if ordered 
to, in a community where they were in majority? 
Would they respect laws, either of the land or 
of nature? Certainly not, since the laws of man 
and nature are the laws of "mortal mind" — evil, 
the "Christian Science" devil. What sacred, time- 
honored custom has she not sown her anarchy 
against? Has she ordered her followers to co- 
operate with the many churches and benevolent 
societies, in the interest of the world peace, social 
uplift, benevolence, and a common interpretation 
of the great spiritual truths of the race? No! 
she has warned her people against these "lazar 
houses," these "dismal cells and slaughter houses 
of infamy," these "mortal minds." She fully 
realized that "Scientists" would not remain "Sci- 
entists" if they mingled with intelligent people 
who weigh propositions in the balance of reason. 

The most mischievous of all Mrs. Eddy's 
teachings is to be found in her obsession relating 
to evil and her devil. Many are the devils of the 
human race — in its stages of low understanding, 
that have been conceived of to answer the prob- 
lem of sin. None, through the darkest ages of 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 247 

the world have been so mischievous and vicious 
as the devil that Mrs. Eddy created. 

In other systems the devil is an evil spirit that 
prompts to evil and sometimes is supposed to 
actually enter and take possession of one. He 
is always a power opposed to God, and mis- 
chievously trying to win God's children away 
from him. Now this kind of a devil gives the 
children of God a chance to save themselves. 
Along with these doctrines usually goes the 
saving clause, "live righteously and you will be 
immune to his malevolent influence." This kind 
of a devil is not so hopelessly bad. He may even 
prove a help to some sluggish natures by spur- 
ring them on to self-preservation. We are prone 
to question even this part of his utility. 

In Mrs. Eddy's devil I cannot find a redeem- 
ing thing. It is all mischievous, so offensively 
mischievous. Her devil is not someone that may 
influence you to wrong, from whom you may 
escape by a life of rectitude and reverence, but is 
you, born and conceived in iniquity, the offspring 
of "legalized lust." 

She pronounces her anathema upon mortal 
mind, devil, and all his creations. If you do her 
bidding there is some hope for you. God does 
not dwell in you, she says, and does not hear 
your prayer, so your road upward out of this 
nightmare is strewn with difficulties. According 
to her corner-stone you have no volition of your 
own, and God does not dwell in you, or reach a 
hand down to help you, so on this line we arrive 



248 FACTS AND FABLES 

at nothing but despair. Now we have been fol- 
lowing the foundation walls of her structure and 
arrive at her favorite "nothingness," on the one 
hand, and the all-power and glory of her devil — 
the only creator who does things — on the other 
hand. 

I, for one, am proud to know that I have a 
part in creating the millions of the mighty suns 
of the Milky Way. Even at the cost of going 
under the awful name Mortal Mind, I am glad 
to be informed by Mrs. Eddy that gravitation is 
a pull that answers to my sway; that the moun- 
tains are mine; the seas are made from tears of 
rejoicing in my creative thought (or something 
like that) ; the birds and the flowers are the beau- 
tiful harmonies and colorations of my ideations; 
that a part of the little ones the Master loved are 
mine. I rejoice that I am a part of "Mortal 
Mind" that creates, acts, lives and loves ; and 
that I am not a part of the loveless abstract god 
of the foundation stones of "Christian Science. ,, 

But the "Scientists" do not see mortal mind in 
this light. They make an evil of it to be hated. 
It resolves itself to this simple matter. Their 
leader has given them some lofty pictures of 
what they would be if it were not for the opposi- 
tions of "mortal mind." For instance, she would 
not have needed to die. They would have no 
ills, no poverty, nothing blocking their way to the 
ideal state of the ideal man that she has pictured 
to them. 

The bane of the whole thing is to be found in 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 249 

the blame they place upon the rest of us, who 
cannot mentally suicide as they have done. The 
whole evil lies with us. They are ready with 
one great shout to knock the walls of the devil 
down, but we shouting against them, sustaining 
him by our shouts. Thus their hatred. They 
present a smile, but under the smile they are 
4 'demonstrating" against you, "the mortal mind," 
the devil. 

Christian Scientists avail themselves of much 
in the realm of the material that their Oracle 
condemns as "evil," "error" and "mortal mind." 
I know of "Scientists' " families that boil their 
water because of the city physician's caution, 
owing to the city water being thought to be 
infected with typhoid germs. 

Who produced the germs in the city water? 
Mrs. Eddy answers, "mortal mind" belief in 
germs, bacteriologists, physicians, you and your 
neighbors who dream in terms of typhoid germs. 
It is not because of physical insanitation, but 
because the evil dreamers — mortal minds — have 
been creating microscopic organisms inimical to 
mortal man. If all were "Scientists" there would 
be no such dreams in the city, and therefore no 
germs in the city water. There would of course 
be no water, another dream of mortal mind, and 
no physical body to need water, and to become 
infected with destructive germs. We would be 
spared the great expense of keeping up a water 
system, a sewer system, and all sanitary pre- 
cautions. With the disappearance of all these 



250 FACTS AND FABLES 

"physical illusions" "mortal mind" itself would 
disappear and there would remain nothing besides 
"Scientists." Mrs. Eddy would then be in her 
glory, for she would have destroyed the "red 
dragon," "mortal mind," error and matter, which 
she informs us was her mission. 

Now with the universe resolved "into its 
primitive nothingness," with "Scientists" in their 
perfection in full sway, let us see what kind of 
an existence they would be experiencing. Being 
free from the hindrances of mortal mind, from 
the bane of your existence, they would then be 
"divine idea" "reflection," the abstract man of 
one of the corner-stones of Mrs. Eddy's "Sci- 
ence." But we find upon an analysis of this 
"Scientist," untrammeled by mortal mind, that 
he would be without individuality, without indi- 
vidual life, without freedom or impulse to act; 
that he would be only an idea, a reflection, not a 
creation. As Mrs. Eddy has said, he is not 
the child of God in the sense that God dwells in 
him, or is a part of him, he being but a powerless 
image, a nonentity, so far as power, initiative, 
will, volition goes. 

The "Scientists" then, unhindered by mortal 
minds, would be resolved into their favorite 
"nothingness." In that ideal state they could not 
"even claim to be something," as Mrs. Eddy 
charges "mortal mind" with doing. 

With "mortal mind" extinct, and the ideal 
"Scientist" resolved into his favorite "nothing- 
ness," we have the spectacle of the god of "Chris- 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 251 

tian Science/' a god without a creature, without 
children to love, and without children who can 
love him. But this god has ideas, though he does 
not endow his ideas with willing, individual life. 
He does not dwell in his ideas, he does not endow 
them with the glory of having ideas of their own. 
Has not Mrs. Eddy made a god after her own 
heart? As "Mother" she has furnished all the 
ideas her followers are to have. They must 
reflect her, must not think for themselves — that 
is the cardinal sin. They must not wish to be 
anything more than reflections of the god of 
Christian Science, which, being interpreted, is 
Mrs. Eddy. 

She tells us that "there is war in Heaven." 
The great red dragon is trying to devour the 
child, "Christian Science. " She has devised a 
way for the utter annihilation of "mortal mind" 
and all its material creations. As Mrs. Eddy has 
postulated a god without a creation to love, so 
has she planned for a race that will be childless 
and loveless, that will also become extinct. She 
has placed a ban upon marriage, saying that 
celibacy is the more ideal condition. Since chil- 
dren bcrn of two parents are mortal, according 
to Mrs. Eddy, and quoting her own recent words : 
"I do not mean that mortals are the children of 
God, far from it," it becomes apparent that beget- 
ting children — mortals — is not one of the graces 
of "Science," rather a sin. She says : "Propor- 
tionately as human generation ceases, the un- 
broken links of eternal harmonious being will be 



252 FACTS AND FABLES 

spiritually discerned; and man, not of the earth 
earthy, but co-existent with God, will appear.' ' 

This man, the abstract ideal of Christian Sci- 
ence, is nothing less than the loveless, volitionless 
nonentity of the abstract god of Mrs. Eddy's 
cornerstones. One thing stands in her way to 
any speedy annihilation of the human race; 
namely, the habit humanity has of dividing itself 
into two sexes and then pairing off and becoming 
one in marriage. According to Mrs. Eddy, God 
has nothing to do with this ; for she says : "Mas- 
culine and feminine genders are human concepts." 
Before she can completely effect the suicide of 
the human race, through her ban upon marriage 
and children, she will have to make "Scientists" 
of all mortals. "Scientists" are the most aggres- 
sive boosters for "Science." Is it any wonder, 
since their own complete salvation lies in the 
annihilation of mortal hindrance, and since they 
can have nothing in common with them, as their 
system is at war with everything human, every 
institution common to all men outside of "Sci- 
ence." 

Some readers will criticize me for making so 
many excursions into the ludicrous and the ridicu- 
lous. My only defense is in the language of the 
preface: "You can't be serious for long at a 
time at a vaudeville. They won't let you. Every 
proposition in 'Christian Science,' followed to its 
logical conclusions, always leads into the ridicu- 
lous." 



CHAPTER XL 

JESUS IS NOT THE CHRIST IN CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

Let us briefly try out the foundation stones of 
"Christian Science" in the light of the New 
Testament story of Jesus Christ. It is here that 
we will arrive at the point whether "Christian 
Science" as given by Mrs. Eddy is Christian or 
simply Eddy ism with no semblance of Christ's 
doctrines, when the padding and outer garments, 
taken from the New Testament, are stripped off. 

The New Testament teaches that Christ was 
incarnate, or was born, as all human beings are, 
of a mother in the flesh. He lived and was 
named Jesus. He did not live in Jesus, but was 
Jesus as you are Smith or Brown. He was Jesus 
Christ, one personality, who dwelt among men. 

Mrs. Eddy makes a distinction between Christ 
and Jesus. Christ is the "Truth" part of the 
Trinity of God which she names Life, Truth, 
and Love. The Father is represented by Life, 
Christ by "Truth," and the Mother by Love. 

She wants us to understand that God's man is 
an "idea," just a thought. Mortal man here has 
no existence in God, but is self -creative from 
"mortal mind." He is below God's recognition; 
outside the field of his purview. Since "mortal 
mind" and the flesh are the great sins, the red 

253 



254 FACTS AND FABLES 

dragon, one would hardly look for Christ to 
spring from such a source. One would be sur- 
prised to find mortal mind capable of so lofty a 
creation or thought. 

This, however, is the strange logic of Mrs. 
Eddy, for she says: "The Virgin Mother con- 
ceived the Idea of God, and gave to her Ideal the 
name of Jesus." 

Since Mrs. Eddy's chief concern has been to 
annihilate matter, thinking she had to do this 
before she could enthrone God, she could not 
acknowledge that Christ was actually incarnate in 
the flesh, that "lazar house of iniquity." She 
therefore has Him conceived as an abstraction — 
an idea. 

She says: "Mary's conception of Him was 
spiritual." 1 

"Jesus was the offspring of Mary's self-con- 
scious communion with God." 2 Now this mental 
offspring she named Jesus. 

"Christ was incorporeal, whereas Jesus was a 
corporeal or bodily existence." (Ibid., p. 229.) 

She explains that Jesus did not have a body, 
only seemed to have. She says that he was wear- 
ing in part a human form (that is, as it seemed 
to mortal view). And then explains that "a por- 
tion of God could not enter corporeal mortal 
man, neither could His fullness be reflected by 
Him — God can only be reflected by spiritual, 
incorporeal man." (Ibid., p. 231.) 

1 S. & H., p. 228, 74th ed. 

2 S. & H., p. 325, 74th ed. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 255 

Ask some "Scientists" to unravel the follow- 
ing sentence for you; its "metaphysics" is too 
much for me : 

"The Christ dwelt forever as an Ideal in the 
bosom of the principle of the man Jesus." 1 Here 
is another one that calls for some help: "Jesus 
and the Christ continued until the Master's ascen- 
sion ; and then the human, the corporeal concept, 
or Jesus, disappeared." 2 "The invisible, the 
spiritual idea, or the Christ, continued to exist." 

According to what we have learned from the 
above quotations Christ was not a man at all. 
He only seemed to be. He- was a spiritual idea 
conceived in the mind of Mary, but he was noth- 
ing short of the Christ, the Truth, or that third 
part of the Christian Science Principle — or 
Abstraction. Mary, of course, was a mortal. 
Thus we have a mortal conceiving the Christ. 

We could quote many passages from Mrs. 
Eddy's writings which say that mortals cannot 
have such concepts. But we will do no more 
than mention a few contradictions, for volumes 
could be written showing her contradictions, for 
these, like the poor, are always with us. 

She says : "At the time Jesus felt our infirmi- 
ties He had not conquered all the beliefs of the 
flesh, or his sense of material life, nor had he 
risen to this final demonstration of spiritual 
power." 3 

i S. & H., p. 334, 74th ed. 

2 Ibid., p. 229. 

s S. & H., p. 358, 74th ed. 



258 FACTS AND FABLES 

According to her the Ascension of Christ is 
the ascension of an idea and nothing more. 

One of the reasons for giving so many quota- 
tions in this chapter from Mrs. Eddy is to show 
that she cannot lay down a proposition and con- 
form to it as any sane writer does, but breaks 
with it continually, and resorts to the ridiculous 
to attempt to patch up the most glaring incon- 
sistencies. Her followers are forbidden to see 
these things. They are to understand that if she 
says this minute a given thing, and the next min- 
ute contradicts it flatly, that the fault lies with 
their want of "spiritual understanding.' ' They 
are exhibiting a low plane of "demonstration" 
and must "dig night and day" into "Science and 
Health." In other words, one inconsistency can 
be clarified by taking more of the kind. "Don't 
think, just take," is the order. "Leave all to 
Truth" and seeming tangles will be straightened 
out. This means that the tangle will not be 
straightened out at all, but the disposition will 
be changed from "I want to know" to "it is suffi- 
cient for me to know that she said it." In a 
word, intellectual suicide. 

Without any apologies, Mrs. Eddy put the 
C. S. brand upon the great story of the New 
Testament, and so doctored it as to have retained 
none of its original purpose and import. To this 
we would have less objection were it not for the 
fact that many of her followers suppose this to 
be the true teachings of the New Testament. She 
throws in so many quotations from the Bible that 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 259 

contradict her principles that the reader is con- 
fused and comes to lose sight of her harmful 
teachings. In fact, about the barren, gaunt form 
of her C. S. she has thrown the beautiful cloak 
of the New Testament which her students see 
and reverence, and believe that it all belongs to 
their leader. 

In the light of common sense, what a farce 
Mrs. Eddy makes of that crowning event of all 
history! She robs it of every vestige of its pur- 
pose and power in the human heart to which it 
becomes known. Take the life of Jesus Christ 
in the light alone of an example, an inspiration 
to service, sacrifice, and love; and she through 
her ravings against matter strips this story of its 
vitality and its meaning. 

She makes the Christ play hide-and-seek with 
matter about the tomb; has Him enact a gro- 
tesque farce to prove to "nothingness" the "noth- 
ingness of matter." She takes from the story all 
its reality and reduces it to a cold abstraction. 
The sacrificing, loving, serving life that Jesus 
lived ; His great example of benevolence, even to 
the giving of His life; His suffering upon the 
cross, were to Mrs. Eddy nothing more than a 
dream — a nightmare of the mortal mind of Jesus. 

She would rob Jesus of His real acts, His 
benefaction, His loving tenderness and solicitude 
for the needs and sufferings of humanity, and 
of His great act of sacrifice, because she was 
jealous of His works in paralleling herself with 
Him, for she was never willing herself to undergo 



260 FACTS AND FABLES 

a sacrifice for others, but sacrificed them for her 
own ends. 

Such sentences as the following from Mrs. 
Eddy are entirely misleading, and do not truly 
represent her fundamental system, but pointedly 
repudiate it. These are false garments borrowed 
for display while driving a bargain for the "stu- 
dents' " credulity. 

"The chaos of mortal mind is made the step- 
ping-stone to the cosmos of immortal mind." 1 

"The cross is the central emblem of human 
history. " 2 

"This Gospel of suffering brought life and 
bliss. This is earth's Bethel in stone, its pillow, 
supporting the ladder which reaches Heaven." 
(Ibid., p. 57.) 

"Suffering was the confirmation of Paul's 
faith. Through a thorn in the flesh he learned 
that spiritual grace was sufficient for him." 

"Sorrow is the harbinger of Joy. Mortal 
throes of anguish forward the birth of mortals." 
(Ibid, p. 57.) 

In these sentences occur the fine-sounding 
words — immortal mind- — Gospel of suffering — 
life and bliss — heaven — spiritual grace — har- 
binger of joy. It is such words that do not truly 
belong to her philosophy, but rather repudiate it, 
that give the sense of spiritual uplift to her read- 
ers and hide the sinister facts from the unpre- 

1 Unity of Good, p. 57. 

2 Ibid. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 261 

pared. They are the Judas kiss that comes to 
finally betray the finer nature of the one upon 
whom this philosophy fixes itself. 

Indeed it is the contradictory that saves her 
at all, even to those of very limited knowledge 
and learning. Such lines as the following, of 
which hundreds could be given, w 7 hich radically 
contradict her system, put some life and truth 
into the dead matter of her foundation, and cor- 
nerstones. She says: 

"By this we understand Christ to be the divine 
idea brought to the flesh in the Son of Mary." 
(Unity of Good, p. 59.) 

"Mortals are free moral agents, to choose 
whom they would serve. If God, then let them 
serve Him, and He will be unto them All in 
AH." 1 

"Mortals may climb the smooth glaciers, leap 
the dark fissures, scale the treacherous ice, and 
stand on the summit of Mount Blanc; but they 
can never turn back what Deity knoweth, nor 
escape from identification with what dwelleth in 
the eternal mind." 2 

This last quotation is the last sentence of Mrs. 
Eddy's book, "Unity of Good." It might have 
been w r ritten by anyone. It contradicts and repu- 
diates her fundamental and oft-stated proposi- 
tions. It is not "Christian Science." The brand 
C. S. does not belong upon it. It is such as these 

1 Unity of Good, p. 60. 

2 Ibid., p. 64. 



262 FACTS AND FABLES 

that save her barren, lifeless, and illogical philos- 
ophy from the ridicule and scorn of the most 
ordinary minds among her followers. In brief, 
it is the false garments thrown about the gaunt 
form that saves it at all. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE PROBLEM OF SIN AND REALITY. 

There have been many attempts during the last 
two thousand years to account for the appearance 
of evil and sickness in the world. God has been 
postulated as all powerful, and as infinite good- 
ness by most all who have philosophized upon the 
nature of God. So common have been these 
premises that all writers and propagandists, ex- 
cepting Mrs. Eddy, have not presumed to corner 
these propositions as distinctly their own. They 
have been governed by too much decency and 
intelligence for such boldness or charlatanism. 
Mrs. Eddy alone is guilty of this offense. No 
one else has been so successful in spreading a 
doctrine of the unreality of sin and sickness as 
has she; and no one else has ever handled the 
subject with so little intelligence and so much 
boldness. 

When Mrs. Eddy wrote ''Science and Health" 
she knew nothing of the philosophies dealing 
with the abstract problems of reality. From Dr. 
Quimby she received her first teaching upon such 
abstract problems. He himself was not well 
versed in the various schools of philosophy, 
though he thought seriously and deeply upon ulti- 
mate things. After his death Mrs. Eddy began 
to enlarge upon the manuscript copies she had 

263 



264 FACTS AND FABLES 

received from him, with the result that his doc- 
trines touching upon sin, disease, death and 
reality were distorted into the first edition of 
"Science and Health," 1875. It ran through 
about fifteen editions in the next ten years, during 
which time it did not change very much. 

When Rev. Wiggin took hold of the jumbled 
mass to rewrite it, in 1885, he did his best to 
smooth over the most glaring defects, and to 
give to the author an appearance of learning, by 
injecting references to philosophers and men of 
science. These interpolations, like much more 
that he put in, became the borrowed jewels which 
dazzled the eyes of many an unsuspecting reader, 
and helped her to throw her net of superstition 
over him. 

Though many thousands of dollars have been 
spent upon critics' salaries in the embellishment 
of the book "Science and Health," the philosophy 
as given in the early editions remains the same, 
though so successfully candied over as to make 
it easier to take. Good English and high sound- 
ing words can cover a multitude of mischief and 
inconsistency. 

As we have pointed out before, one of the 
cornerstones of Mrs. Eddy's system is the unreal- 
ity of sin and sickness. No amount of polishing 
by paid artists has been able to cover the serious 
cracks and defects in this much used cornerstone, 
in spite of the fact that it is one of her "revela- 
tions." Her apologists are quite successful, with 
the masses, in making her ignorance of philos- 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 265 

ophy and science appear as learning, by sophis- 
tries boldly though placidly reiterated. They 
know the power of suggestion and wield it with 
as much studied purpose as do the most scien- 
tific salesmen of the day. 

Bishop Berkeley has been made to work for 
Christian Science for three decades without his 
own consent. Mrs. Eddy said Berkeley and I 
believe alike on the unreality of matter. She 
never could explain what Berkeley believed or 
taught concerning matter, for she did not know. 
His name was written large in philosophy, which 
was enough for Mrs. Eddy, since "Berkeley and 
I" helped to awe her simple students. He was 
not on hand to defend himself against the load he 
has had to carry. 

There is a vast difference between matter in 
Mrs. Eddy's Christian Science and Berkeley's 
philosophy. The following from William James' 
Pragmatism gives Berkeley's philosophy in a 
paragraph : 

"Material substance was criticised by Berkeley 
with such telling effect that his name has rever- 
berated through all subsequent philosophy. 
Berkeley's treatment of the notion of matter is 
so well known as to need hardly more than a 
mention. So far from denying the external 
world which we know, Berkeley corroborated it. 
It was the scholastic notion of a material sub- 
stance unapproachable by us, behind the external 
world, deeper and more real than it, and needed 
to support it, which Berkeley maintained to be the 



266 FACTS AND FABLES 

most effective of all reducers of the external 
world to unreality. Abolish that substance, he 
said; believe that God, whom you can under- 
stand and approach, sends you the sensible world 
directly, and you confirm the latter and back it 
up by his divine authority. Berkeley's criticism 
of 'matter' was consequently absolutely prag- 
matic. Matter is known as our sensations of 
color, figure, hardness and the like. They are 
the cash -value of the term. The difference mat- 
ter makes to use by truly being is that we then 
get such sensations ; by not being, is that we lack 
them. These sensations then are its sole mean- 
ing. Berkeley doesn't deny matter, then ; he sim- 
ply tells us what it consists of. It is a true name 
for just so much in the way of sensations." 

William James, in his Gifford Lectures, sur- 
veyed at length the various theories and doctrines 
on evil. To Mrs. Eddy's treatment of evil he 
spoke only these few words and passed on to the 
more profitable: 

"Christian Science, so-called, the sect of Mrs. 
Eddy, is the most radical branch of mind-cure 
in its dealings with evil. For it evil is simply a 
lie, and anyone who mentions it a liar. The 
optimistic ideal of duty forbids us to pay it the 
compliment even of explicit attention." 

Let us turn a few rays of light upon Mrs. 
Eddy's doctrine of unreality and see if the 
human race could survive such teachings, if uni- 
versally obeyed. I must first raise the caution, 
namely. Do not let a "Scientist" sidetrack you 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 267 

by denying that Mrs. Eddy taught that there is 
no reality in pain, sickness, sin and matter, even 
in mortal existence. He will try to make you 
believe that if she seems to have said a very 
ignorant thing, that the fault does not lie in her 
or her statement, but that it lies in your "low 
plane of understanding," and that she, "in the 
Mount, face to face with God," speaks a "new 
tongue." 

Among the most beautiful and marvelous 
creations is the human form. It is clothed in an 
outer garment, the skin, which for beauty, deli- 
cacy, and efficiency, rivals the wide range of 
Nature's handiwork. How delicate, how sensi- 
tive is the finer covering known as mucous mem- 
brane. What sensations of delight and pleasure 
are enjoyed because of the very delicacy of this 
membrane, because of its susceptibility to injury 
and pain. Through the delicacy of the membrane 
of tongue and palate one delights in the relish of 
daily food. Through the marvelous structure of 
the skin one basks in the warmth of spring, or 
delights in the breezes of summer; yet the same 
structure makes possible suffering from injury 
or inclement weather. We have the pleasures of 
the body at the price of its susceptibility to injury 
and to pain. 

To say that pain is an evil is to say that pleas- 
ure is an evil. To say that pain is unreal is to 
say that pleasure is unreal. Both are states of 
consciousness, and to deny either is to deny 
the reality of consciousness. To deny the reality 



268 FACTS AND FABLES 

of consciousness is to deny the reality of life. 
To deny the reality of life is to deny all existence. 

Pain is the protectorate of the physical organ- 
ism in which your personality resides for the 
present period. Not only is it because you can 
suffer, that you also can have pleasures, but you 
have thereby a protection, that without pain, 
were impossible. Man experiences more pain 
in injury than do the lower orders of life. He 
correspondingly experiences higher joys and 
pleasures. 

The lover, whose heart bounds, whose blood 
rushes swiftly at the sight of his love, corre- 
spondingly droops in her absence ; and at her loss 
suffers pangs of sorrow as deep as were lofty 
his ecstacies of joy. He who would love greatly 
does so at the price of great pain, should it come. 
He who would shrink from the possible pain of 
the lover lost, must sacrifice the joys of the lover 
gained. 

Jesus blessed with his presence and benedic- 
tion the union of two hearts who followed the 
instincts of love, and shrank not at the possible 
price of pain. Love is ever fearless, ever opti- 
mistic. 

Any philosophy that strikes at the bouyancy of 
conjugal love, warmth of friendship, parental or 
filial love, is mischievous and corroding in its 
influence. Mrs. Eddy was wanting in parental 
love, in faithfulness to friends. Her philosophy 
— being herself — is producing its kind in many 
of her followers. A "Christian Science ,, healer 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 269 

told a friend of mine that the hardest impulse 
for him to "demonstrate" over was his love for 
his mother. He believed that with perseverance 
he would yet overcome his love for her until her 
personality would be as others to him. 

A mother related to me this incident of her 
own daughter, who was studying to be a "Chris- 
tian Science" healer. Her daughter's husband 
had died under "Science ,, treatment. The widow 
showed no emotions of grief; sternly rebuked a 
Methodist preacher who called to express his 
sympathy; and at the grave stood smiling, and 
after the body had been lowered into the ground 
cast a flower after it with an audible laugh. She 
was "demonstrating" over earthly affections, 
over "personality." "Scientists" have succeeded 
in "demonstrating over personality" to the place 
where Jesus Christ is no longer the Lord, no 
longer a personal Saviour, only one of a line of 
prophets leading up to the fulfillment of all 
prophecy in the life and works of Mrs. Eddy. 

Sin is the price paid for knowledge, for the 
rise in development. The advent of sin in the 
life of the race came as a rise and not as a fall. 
An individual of the race has his fall when his 
conduct drops to a moral and spiritual level below 
the higher plane of which he has become con- 
scious. Nations have their fall when they drop 
in conduct below the highest spiritual plane to 
which they have at any time reached. 

Every seer and prophet who has pointed a 
higher way, who has brought more light into the 



270 FACTS AND FABLES 

world, has likewise brought more sin into it. As 
no other man ever spoke as did Jesus Christ, as 
no one before or since has brought so much light 
into the world ; so no one has so greatly enlarged 
the scope of sin as He. I am speaking here of 
sin in the sense of responsibility to God and to 
the race. When Jesus built upon the crude 
law, "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," 
and said, "resist not evil," and placed the heavy 
injunction — "But I say unto you, love your ene- 
mies, bless them that curse you, do good to them 
that hate you, and pray for them that despite- 
fully use you and persecute you" — He brought a 
burden of sin into the world, probably heavier 
than any man has been able to bear alone. By 
the life he lived before men, through the vision 
he gave of the Kingdom of Heaven, He enlarged 
the meaning of the words neighbor and brother, 
and extended the bounds of duty beyond the 
borders of one's family, state, or nation, far out 
into the farther corners of the earth, beyond the 
present generation into generations yet unborn. 

He who shrinks from the enlarged responsi- 
bility can never attain to the higher vision. He 
who denies that he is his brother's keeper, denies 
himself the great joy of brotherhood. He who 
is afraid of the heights because of the depths he 
will fall to, if he starts downward, will never 
catch the vision of the Larger Life. 

Sin is to righteousness what darkness is to 
light, or cold to heat. While cold is of itself 
nothing, it is as much a reality to us as is heat. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 271 

Our lives are sustained by heat and light; but 
deprive us of either and we are destroyed by its 
absence. Sin may be more than a negation of 
righteousness, or spiritual inertia. It may be 
positive evil, and frequently is. To say that sin 
is nothing, that it is unreal, is to play loosely 
with words and reason. Such is the metaphysics 
of "Christian Science." 

Christian Scientists deny the existence or real- 
ity of sin. Just in the degree in which they can 
accomplish this "state of understanding" in their 
lives will they correspondingly shut out the vision 
of righteousness. It is not fewer sins, that the 
individual and the race need to be conscious of, 
but more. He has the broadest vision of right- 
eousness who recognizes the longest line of sins. 
For every act of righteousness there is a possible 
sin. 

It is not from the ranks of the trained fighters 
of the world that the new consciousness making 
for universal peace is coming, but from those 
who have had loftier visions and have seen in 
war a great black sin. While armament and con- 
quest is looked upon as the high prerogative of a 
nation, the vision of peace and universal brother- 
hood will be seen through clouded glasses. Catch 
a glimpse of the brotherhood of the Prince of 
Peace and through this crystal the sin of war 
mounts into a cloud of the blackness of night. 

It is not an age of innocence that the race 
wants — the animals below us have that. It is 
knowledge of good and evil that is lifting the 



272 FACTS AND FABLES 

race higher and higher. They go hand in hand 
and are inseparable. It takes lights and shadows 
to make a picture. It takes a consciousness of 
what would be sin, to give the joy of righteous- 
ness. The sinful act is as much a reality as is 
the righteous act, for it can destroy just as 
righteousness can build. 

The denial of sin as a reality, which is a part 
of Christian Science, will inevitably retard the 
growth of righteousness. With the denial of sin 
goes the denial of personal responsibility. The 
burden of the Sermon on the Mount is that you 
are your brother's keeper. Jesus increased your 
personal responsibility ; he thereby increased your 
possible sins. 

One of the first things the "Scientist" is 
taught is that he has enough to do to look out 
for himself. Many take to this doctrine com- 
fortably. A heavy burden is lifted from the lives 
of many when they are deluded into the belief 
that they are not personally responsible. The 
doctrine acts like an opiate, for it gives a false 
sense of freedom. It may even effect a cure of 
the body through the nature of the rest cure to 
those who have been burdened and worried by 
too much concern over their actions or inactions. 
But the doctrine does not free from sins, it 
merely covers them up. It does not give higher 
visions of righteousness, but opiates and produces 
a low sense of duty. 

The Kingdom of Heaven is established in the 
human heart, not by denying the reality or evil 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 273 

of sin, but by having a fuller consciousness of it, 
and a freedom from it by the choice of righteous- 
ness. The soul does not attain to a high spiritual 
plane through repression. 

Jesus taught that the first step toward the love 
of God was to love your neighbor. He enlarged 
the conception of who one's neighbor is, and gave 
to duty an ever advancing meaning. He did not 
require less love for parent or friend. He knew 
that a large capacity to love one another gave a 
large capacity to love the Father. He loved 
greatly those about Him, and wept at the tomb 
of Lazarus. He prayed to the Father as to one 
who hears; as to one who loves in return. To 
Him the Father was more than an abstract prin- 
ciple; He was a listening responsive spirit. To 
Him God was conscious of the sins and suffering 
of mankind, and was more than willing to give 
power and peace to them that asked. 

The God to whom Jesus prayed is repudiated 
by the abstract "Principle" of Mrs. Eddy's 
fundamental teachings. In her early teachings 
she dismissed a student from her class because 
he believed in a personal God, a God who knew 
him, and could understand him, and hear his 
prayers. She explained to her class that students 
could not make progress in "Science" while 
hindered by a sense of a personal God, She 
sought to establish everything on the premise of 
the impersonal. Abstract principle took the place 
of the loving, fueling soul. Her doctrines are so 
saturated with this premise — her own loveless 



274 FACTS AND FABLES 

life expressed it — that every human institution 
touched by her loses its warmth of soul. Her 
doctrines are her best biographers. 

Just as her teachings strike at the very root of 
love between husband and wife, parent and child, 
brother and sister, friend and friend, neighbor 
and neighbor, lover and lover, so am I convinced 
that it does at the love of God to those who 
become of her mind. She repudiates the Father 
of mercies, and gives to her following nothing 
but cold abstract law. It is true that many of 
her followers worship and love the God that 
Christ revealed, but this comes not because of 
Mrs. Eddy's teachings or example, but in spite of 
them. She made capital and followers, not 
because of what she taught as her fundamental 
doctrines, but on what she borrowed, yet tried to 
destroy. 

The teachings of Jesus Christ make the soul 
vibrate with compassion and sympathy, binds 
human hearts closer and closer together, becomes 
the dynamic that stirs men to thoughts and deeds 
of love and mercy, and lifts the soul in love and 
reverence to the Father of Life. His teaching 
expands the nature, illumines the soul with light 
and warmth, and makes it wish to live for others. 

The fundamental teachings of Christian Sci- 
ence, if believed and follozved, zvould contract the 
soul, dry up the springs of love for God and man; 
starve the natural and zvholesome impulses of 
nature; dwarf the best in human life, and make 
self-seeking the central passion. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE "MOTHER CHURCH^ — A CENTRALIZED 
POWER. 

' ' By their fruits ye shall know them. ' ' 

Among the works left by Mrs. Eddy, either 
as a blessing or as a tyranny of the dead, is her 
church institution. Our study would not be com- 
plete without an examination of the laws and 
workings of this church. We shall not draw 
from hearsay about the government of this insti- 
tution, but from the Church Manual, of the First 
Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, which 
was written by Mrs. Eddy. 

It, like her other works, is considered to be 
infallible, since she left it such that none of the 
by-laws can ever be changed. How convenient 
for them to have a ready-made system of laws 
and never to have to bother about such things. 
A certain class of people love to be governed by 
the dead. The Chinese take great comfort from 
such tyranny, and built a great wall about the 
empire to keep out the light of progressive peo- 
ples. They wanted nothing more than the 
inspiration of the past. What their ancestors 
thought and did was sufficient for them. The 
retarding influence of this false premise is appar- 
ent to the whole world. 

275 



276 FACTS AND FABLES 

The Christian Scientists are in the same posi- 
tion as the orthodox Chinese. They are bound 
and hindered by the tyranny of the dead. If 
they undo any of their leader's grasping work 
they knock out from under it the only prop that 
it stands on; namely, her divine inspiration. 
Whenever they come to apply the higher criticism 
to her system you will see a scurrying away from 
the structure like rodents from the hull of the 
ship that is found to be ready to sink. 

One might pertinently ask, How comes it that 
in this age of reason and investigation, so many 
people can, as one mind, hold to a system so 
wanting in common sense and fact; and refrain 
from analysis and criticism? Our examination 
of Mrs. Eddy's church manual will throw much 
light on this point. 

An additional reason gleaned from without is 
the fact that the great army of healers, teachers 
and leaders are making money out of the doc- 
trines undisturbed. So large is this number that 
the moment anyone starts a criticism he is 
pounced upon and soon ousted, henceforth to be 
an object of hatred and scorn. This is no small 
reason, now that Mrs. Eddy is dead. While 
living she wielded the power of excommunication 
with expedition. 

The first Christian Science Association was 
formed in 1879 with Mrs. Eddy as the lecturer. 
The early years of the church were stormy and 
full of trouble, though the historical sketch of 
the Manual of this period says that, "Hitherto 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 277 

has the Lord helped us." It was during the first 
years of turbulence, due to the pastor's arro- 
gance, that Mrs. Eddy saw that if she was to 
hold the monopoly as a leader that she must also 
hold all power, and be in a position to dictate as 
she willed, thus the Church Manual under con- 
sideration. 

I have previously touched upon the history of 
how she gained this power by a "circuitous 
route,' ' which no man can thoughtfully call clean 
and honest. Having once ousted all members 
from independence and power, she never relaxed 
the hold, but held the reins, and still drives with 
the same tyranny, though dead. 

The First Church of Christ, Scientist— the 
"Mother Church" of Boston, was organized in 
1892. The Manual contains all the by-laws gov- 
erning the "Mother Church," also governing all 
branch churches of the "Christian Science" faith. 

There are said to be over 50,000 members of 
the "Mother Church," many members of other 
churches being members of the Mother Church. 
All teachers of "Christian Science," all Readers 
of branch churches, and all authorized healers 
must be members of the "Mother Church." In 
other words, the whole professional force are 
members. 

Now, excommunication from the Mother 
Church means instant professional ruin. It takes 
only a suspicion of heresy to bring down upon 
the ambitious or prying the heavy hand of this 
power. Since the professional ranks of the Sci- 



278 FACTS AND FABLES 

enlists have not been filled from the ranks of 
independence — and it has proven a lucrative 
business — few have cared to attempt to sweep 
out the dust and cobwebs from the institution. 
Submission and adherence to all tenets is the part 
of business diplomacy, both from the standpoint 
of individual safety and mutual professional 
welfare. 

From a business standpoint it is not a bad 
thing to have a commercial corner on the Holy 
Ghost, It is therefore more profitable to not dis- 
turb or examine the commodity too critically. 
Since ''Christian Science" is a business first with 
the hierarchy and the professional class in gen- 
eral, and since it is the ambition of a large part 
of the constituency to ultimately become "demon- 
strators" and purveyors of the Holy Ghost at so 
much per "realization of the Allness of God," it 
becomes apparent why "Christian Science" will 
continue to grow apace, and why there is little 
likelihood of any reformation or progress from 
within. 

In weighing this matter we must not lose sight 
of the temporal head of the church since Mrs. 
Eddy has passed on. She held the reins in her 
own hands while here, but left them in the hands 
of five men who were brought up under her 
tuition. 

This is the board of directors of five members, 
a self-perpetuating board. They are in absolute 
control of all the affairs of the "Mother Church," 
including the commercial commodities. They are 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 279 

governed by the by-laws laid down in the Church 
Manual which cannot be repealed or amended 
without Mrs. Eddy's consent. If the laws of the 
land would recognize her consent brought in 
from "afar" or "near" or "where," the public 
might be treated to a comedy eclipsing the gen- 
erosity of the modern Mormon hierarchy, when 
a few years ago it became imperative that the 
church got a "revelation" from God on poly- 
gamy. 

Now this speculation is more than half -serious. 
According to "Christian Science" doctrine — the 
one-mind theory — Mrs. Eddy must be the head 
of her church still. The New York Sun raised 
this question recently and received an answer in 
keeping with my position : It says : 

"Mrs. Eddy is not dead ; that premise is uni- 
versal. Mr. Cox, the spokesman for the directors 
in Boston, voiced his belief in that faith yester- 
day. The mind of Mrs. Eddy, which is undying, 
according to the Christian Science doctrine, is as 
active today in directing the affairs of the church 
as it was a month ago." 

Since the Mother Church is a business organi- 
zation the laws of the land have a voice in the 
interpretation of its by-laws. For this reason we 
will probably miss the comedy -of the "consent" 
to changes in the by-laws. If it proved profit- 
able to get such consent, why not ? Mrs. Eddy 
used to settle a disputed point with her business 
managers by suddenly bringing in the informa- 



280 FACTS AND FABLES 

tion, "God has directed me ; what more have you 
to say?" 

But why change the by-laws? They give all 
power into the hands of the five directors. No 
one else has a voice in their affairs. When a 
vacancy occurs the other four members fill it. 
The fifty thousand members have no voice in 
saying who that member shall be. Whereas Mrs. 
Eddy was formerly the autocrat, the board of 
directors stand in that position today. The blame 
of such an un-American form of government 
does not rest on the shoulders of the members 
of the present board, for they had nothing to do 
with shaping the policies of the institution, but 
were simply hired managers into whose hands 
the whole thing fell. Now they cannot change 
the form of government without Mrs. Eddy's 
consent, and the laws of the land will not recog- 
nize a "consent" coming from her now. What a 
convenient "Jorkins." 

While Mrs. Eddy was here, in the Mount, she 
could throw a bomb shell into any revolutionist's 
camp, and blame the carnage on the board of 
directors. It is from this time on, forever, the 
board of directors' inning. All they have to do 
is to point to the Manual and remind you that 
it is Mrs. Eddy and God for it. 

So here we have an absolutism, with tens of 
thousands of people bowing in mute, worshipful 
obedience. This organization is so characteristic 
of its author. She would have her way even if 
it took a fit to get it. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 281 

The yearly revenue flowing into the hands of 
the board is of no mean proportion, and rapidly 
increasing. Beside the sale of Mrs. Eddy's copy- 
righted books and pamphlets, all sold at prices 
far above other books of the same cost of pro- 
duction (to buy all of her books, takes twenty- 
seven dollars for the cheapest edition and thirty- 
four dollars for the best), are the Christian 
Science Journal, a monthly periodical; the Sen- 
tinel, a weekly; Der Herold, and the Monitor, a 
daily newspaper. 

Since all "Scientists" were admonished and 
trained by Mrs. Eddy to "sell, sell, sell my 
books," without commission, the net revenue is 
very large. They printed the editions of "Science 
and Health" up to the time that it had reached 
over four hundred and forty thousand and then 
ceased giving the number printed. 

Mrs. Eddy did not leave it a matter of choice 
on the part of her followers regarding the pur- 
chase of the periodicals. Article VIII, Sect. 14, 
says : "It shall be the privilege and duty of every 
member, who can afford it, to subscribe for the 
periodicals which are the organs of the church." 

The word "privilege," you will notice, is su- 
perfluous, excepting as it may serve to make the 
word duty sink in with more grace. 

All members of the Mother Church pay an an- 
nual fee of one dollar or more if they wish. With 
pew rent and collections, the whole commercial 
machinery brings in a net revenue into the hands 



282 FACTS AND FABLES 

of the board of not less than $150,000 per year 
and probably much more. 

There is a secrecy pervading the workings of 
the "Mother Church" as there is with the Mor- 
mon hierarchy. A by-law says : "Members shall 
neither report the discussions of this board, nor 
those with Mrs. Eddy." 1 

"Thou shalt not" occurs many times in the 
Manual. Its government is not representative in 
any sense, but purely autocratic. Mrs. Eddy's 
studied purpose was to retain all power herself, 
before and after death, which she has done. 

She took special care to forever prevent the 
rise of a leader to take her place in the hearts and 
superstitions of her followers. She did away 
with preachers and exhorters and instituted 
"readers" in their place. She then, in her by- 
laws, circumscribes the functions of her readers, 
so that they are nothing more than automata, so 
far as teaching goes. The by-law pertaining to 
this reads: "Readers in Branch Churches, Sect. 
6. These readers shall be members of the 
Mother Church. They shall read understanding- 
ly and be well educated. They shall make no re- 
marks explanatory of the Lesson Sermon at any 
time, but they shall read all notices and remarks 
that may be printed in the Christian Science 
Quarterly. This by-law applies to all readers in 
all branch churches." 

"Sect. 8. The Church Reader shall not be a 

1 Church Manuels, p. 26, 1911 ed. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 283 

leader, but he shall maintain the Tenets, Rules, 
and discipline of the church." 

The "Sermon Lesson" is made in Boston for 
all churches. So far as the intelligent help of the 
reader goes, the "Sermon Lesson" might just as 
well come in the form of a phonographic record 
to be given through the horn of a phonograph. 
The "education" of the Reader is of no avail 
since he "shall make no remarks explanatory of 
the Lesson Sermon at any time." The weak part 
of the phonograph is that it could not come in a 
silk hat, keep a lookout for heresy, and sell 
books. 

There is trained in Boston a bunch of lec- 
turers. These lecturers are like the readers — 
mere automata, as we shall see. According to 
Article XXII, Sect. 4, all churches are com- 
manded to employ one of the authorized lecturers 
to deliver one or more lectures per year. The 
expense is borne by the local church. The lecture 
is usually free to the public and widely adver- 
tised. The result of these lectures is more reve- 
nue into the hands of the board of directors. The 
lectures to be delivered must pass the censorship 
of the Clerk of the "Mother Church" (see 
XXXI, Sect. 2) and must "bear testimony of the 
facts pertaining to the life of the Pastor 
Emeritus." This means that Mrs. Eddy has 
commanded that her praises shall be sung for- 
ever. This reminds us of the incident, recorded 
by Georgine Milmine in her excellent history of 
Mrs. Eddy, where for a few weeks Mrs. Eddy 



284 FACTS AND FABLES 

attempted to teach a country school, and made 
the little children march around the room and 

sing: 

"We will tell Mrs. Glover 
How much we love her; 
By the light of the moon 
We will come to her." 

""Mother" has been doing the same thing to 
the big ones. There stood for a long time a by- 
law commanding that her hymns should be sung 
in the "Mother Church" at least once a month. 
No choice here again, but an order: 

"If a solo singer in the Mother Church shall 
either neglect or refuse to sing alone a hymn 
written by our Leader and Pastor Emeritus, as 
often as once a month, and oftener if the board 
of directors so direct, a meeting shall be called, 
and the salary of the singer shall be stopped." 

I quote this from the church Manual, fifteenth 
edition, 1900, Article XXVII, Sect. 1. This has 
been modified in the last manual, which must 
stand forever. The Mother hymn, under com- 
pulsion, must have been sung enough times to 
make it a sacriligious breach on the part of the 
board of directors to misconstrue the words "spe- 
cial hymn" for any other person's hymn. I take 
it that the former explicit name has become an 
unwritten law, and thus not necessary. Perhaps 
Mark Twain had something to do with the in- 
spiration that caused the wording of the section, 
which now reads: "The solo singer shall not 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 285 

neglect to sing any special hymn selected by the 
board of directors." 

Care has been taken by Mrs. Eddy that the 
lecturers shall not become too popular. They 
must sing her praises and then retire in modesty 
after having delivered to the people the message 
standardized at Boston. She discourages such 
things as "receptions" and "festivities after a 
lecture/' ostensibly to let the people depart in 
"quiet thought on that subject." (Manual 
XXXII, Sect. 4, 191 1.) 

At every church service care must be taken to 
raise Mrs. Eddy's sign-board. This was not 
left as a courtesy to be extended by the body in 
session, but was commanded forever and for- 
ever. The service consists in reading from her 
book "Science and Health" — the ordained pastor 
— and the Bible. The First Reader reads from 
"Science and Health," the second reader reads 
from the Bible. In the beginning the First 
Reader read from the Bible, and the Helper from 
"Science and Health." That was more of a con- 
cession to the Bible than Mrs. Eddy could stand, 
so she reversed the order. Her book, to the 
"Scientists," has become the "head of the cor- 
ner." Read carefully the following paragraph 
from "Science and Health," page 139, 1909 edi- 
tion: 

"The decision by vote of church councils as to 
what should and should not be considered Holy 
Writ; the manifest mistakes in the ancient ver- 
sions; the thirty thousand different readings in 



286 FACTS AND FABLES 

the Old Testament, in the three hundred thou- 
sand in the New — these facts show how a mortal 
and material sense stole into the divine record, 
with its own hue darkening to some extent the 
inspired pages. But mistakes could neither 
wholly obscure the Divine Science of the 
Scriptures seen from Genesis to Revelation, mar 
the demonstration of Jesus, nor annul the heal- 
ing of the prophets, who foresaw that "the stone 
that the builders rejected" would become "the 
head of the corner." Science and Health in the 
understanding of the Scientists is now the head 
of the corner. 

Mrs. Eddy commands that the "readers shall 
not read from copies or manuscripts, but from 
the books." "The Readers of Science and Health 
with Key to the Scriptures, before commencing 
to read from this book, shall distinctly announce 
the full title of the book and give the author's 
name." (Manual, Article III, Sect. 5.) 

The church manual provides a censorship on 
what the "Scientists" shall read. If the "Sci- 
entists" were in majority, and one of them presi- 
dent of these United States, as Mrs. Eddy wrote 
to her son that he would have been had he not 
neglected his own education, so that she was 
ashamed of him, there would be many fires 
lighted throughout the country burning the "ob- 
noxious books" written by others. Under such 
a regime there would be little left among the 
books of men, since Mrs. Eddy said in her 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 287 

biography that "human history needs to be re- 
vised, and the material records expunged." 

Outside her own books I do not know what 
books would escape. I would fear for the Bible 
along with the rest. If it escaped the flames, 
and was "revised," none of us would know it 
when it reappeared. 

Perhaps some of my readers will not take this 
seriously. Some years ago Mrs. Eddy sent out 
a concealed edict to all her leaders, teachers and 
healers to destroy all books that were "ob- 
noxious." Those who refused experienced all 
the injury that could be inflicted without open 
rupture with criminal laws. 

A few points from the Church Manual will 
suffice to illustrate the nature of the censorship. 

"A member of this church shall not patronize 
a publishing house or book store that has for 
sale obnoxious books." (Article VIII, Sect. 12.) 

Section II forbids members buying, selling or 
circulating books out of harmony with "Chris- 
tian Science." 

"Also the spirit in which the writer has writ- 
ten his literature shall be definitely considered." 
Now physiology, anatomy, science of most any 
kind, psychology in particular and what not, out- 
side her own writings, fall under the ban of these 
by-laws. They shall not buy other books, but 
they are ordered to buy hers. 

The Tenets of the Mother Church are copy- 
righted, and the branch churches are forbidden 
to "write the Tenets in their church books." One 



290 FACTS AND FABLES 

their customs and ways. The sacraments so dear 
to them she trampled under foot. They pray 
aloud, she forbids it, But the chief reason was 
the fear that the hearts of those in prayer would 
utter Christian sentiments, heresies that are not 
to be tolerated. So their tongues are tied for- 
ever in mute submission to the tyranny of the 
dead. 

But more evil than this is the by-law that can 
never be changed, that has in it the seed of de- 
struction, that strikes at the very root of the cen- 
tral theme and purpose of the mission of Jesus 
Christ, the most valuable asset of the human race, 
the highest flight of consciousness, namely, 
"Love they neighbor as thyself." 

The intelligent need nothing more than the 
words of the by-law found in the 191 1 edition of 
the Church Manual, Article VIII, Sect. 5 : 

"The prayers in Christian Science churches 
shall be offered for the congregations collectively 
and exclusively." 

Since the laws of the land will not recognize 
"a consent" brought in from Mrs. Eddy's where- 
abouts, the intelligent reader will realize the full 
import of the tyranny of the dead in the follow- 
ing by-law, the last one in the Church Manual 
(Article XXXV, Sect. 3): 

"No new Tenet or by-law shall be adopted, nor 
any Tenet or by-law amended or anuulled, with- 
out the written consent of Mary Baker Eddy, the 
author of our text book, Science and Health." 



CHAPTER XIV. 

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE HEALING. 

Here is where we have come to the mainspring 
of Christian Science. If mental attitudes and 
mental states had no physiological influence, or 
even as little as the average physician has been 
wont to acknowledge, we would be spared the 
unhappy duty of diagnosing and prescribing for 
this new condition. The Christian Science virility 
is due to the fact that Mrs. Eddy's, or more prop- 
erly speaking, Ouimby's method of treating the 
sick has in it one of the most potent factors for 
cure to be found among the many departments 
making up the broad scope of medicine. Were it 
not so this cult would never have sprung into 
existence nor grown to any such proportions as 
we find it today, even had it had a beginning. 

It began as a healing institution, not as a re- 
ligion. It was not a missionary movement, but a 
commercial movement, with Quimby's manu- 
script as the commodity for sale. It was taught 
as moral science first, a system of mental heal- 
ing — not Christian healing. "Christian Science" 
healing must be seen through the history of its 
growth, and through the ideas the patients and 
healers have of the power received and admin- 
istered. 

In examining into Mrs. Eddy's philosophy — 

291 



292 FACTS AND FABLES 

which to the "Scientists" stands as the highest 
and most vital truth in the possession of the race 
— we have emphasized the fundamental proposi- 
tions, her corner-stones ; and have tested her side 
excursions in the light of these foundation prin- 
ciples, and on every hand found contradictions 
and repudiations of her doctrine. This we shall 
do with the department of healing, and determine 
through what spring of activity and energy the 
results come. 

In studying Mrs. Eddy's life we have invaria- 
bly found that when she pointed in a given direc- 
tion, that it behooved us to search in the opposite 
for the truth. Her flutterings were usually mis- 
leading. Let us follow this clue in our present 
search and see what the results will bring. If we 
find that she has abused anything that might look 
like her own methods, let us stop right there and 
make a careful search, thus following what she 
calls the "law of opposites." It works well in 
following her devious ways. 

Mrs. Eddy has given the impression to her 
healers and "students" that she had discovered 
the only effective way — a secret one upon which 
«he had a corner— of utilizing the Divine Mind, 
or God, in behalf of the sick and sinful. This 
must be our first tryout — to see whether the 
spirit invoked be of God or man. If it be of 
God and what the healers dispense is the Holy 
Ghost, Mrs. Eddy's crimes of greed are im- 
measurably increased in effecting a corner and 
charging exorbitant prices for the knowledge that 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 293 

should be like the air — free for all. Her own 
price was $300 to $800, but her charity has writ- 
ten into the by-laws a more modest price when 
received through students : "A student's price for 
teaching Christian Science shall not exceed $100 
per pupil. ,, (Article XXVI, Sect. 5.) 

If God's mind can be invoked in behalf of a 
patient and a cure effected through the Divine 
Mind, it necessarily follows that He becomes cog- 
nizant of the patient's sickness and exercises His 
knowledge and power — unless it be that Mrs. 
Eddy taught her healers a secret way by which 
they could steal God's healing virtue without His 
knowledge, as she used to claim her enemies did 
from her. 

Christian Science, according to Mrs. Eddy, 
cannot be divine healing in the sense of receiving 
special aid from God in behalf of the sick, for 
she explicitly states that "prayer to a personal 
God is a hindrance." She says: 

"Petitions bring to mortals only the results of 
mortal's own faith." (S. & H., p. 11, 1909 ed.) 

"If prayer nourishes the belief that sin is can- 
celed, and that man is made better merely by 
praying, prayer is an evil. He grows worse who 
continues to sin because he fancies himself for- 
given." (S. & H., p. 5, 1909 ed.) 

"The mere habit of pleading with the divine 
mind, as one pleads with a human being, per- 
petuates the belief in God as humanly circum- 
scribed—an error which impedes spiritual 
growth." 



294 FACTS AND FABLES 

"Asking God to be God is a vain repetition. 
He who is immutably right will do right without 
being reminded of His province. The wisdom of 
man is not sufficient to warrant him in advising 
God." (S. &H., p. 2, 1909 ed.) 

"To suppose that God forgives or punishes sin 
according as his mercy is sought or unsought, is 
to misunderstand Love and to make prayer the 
safety-valve for wrongdoing." (S. & H., p. 6.) 

"God is not influenced by man. The divine 
ear is not an auditory nerve." (S. & H., p. 7.) 

"A mere request that God will heal the sick has 
no power to gain more of the divine presence 
than is always at hand. The beneficial effect of 
such prayer for the sick is on the human mind, 
making it act more powerfully on the body 
through a blind faith in God." 

"Prayer to a corporeal God (she evidently 
means a personal God, such as most Christians 
pray to) affects the sick like a drug, which has 
no efficacy of its own but borrows its power from 
human faith and belief. The drug does nothing, 
because it has no intelligence. It is a mortal be- 
lief that causes a drug to be apparently either 
poisonous or sanative." (S. & H., p. 3, 1909.) 

"Prayer to a personal God is a hindrance." 

"Shall we ask the divine Principle of all good- 
ness to do His own work? His work is done, 
and we have only to avail ourselves of God's rule 
in order to receive His blessing, which enables us 
to work out our own salvation." (S. & H., p. 3, 
1909.) 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 295 

Mrs. Eddy explicitly teaches that God is not 
cognizant of sin and sickness. She further 
teaches that God does not dwell in man. She 
says : "Who then dares to define Soul as some- 
thing within man?" The man that God knows 
anything about is her "idea-man," an abstraction, 
a "reflection," a perfection; not a part of God, 
but a mere image that He sees of Himself. This 
"idea-man" is not a feeling, thinking, willing, 
loving, suffering being. He needs nothing, there- 
fore would not need to pray or petition — a thing 
that he could not do if he wanted to, since, so far 
as volition goes, he is a nonentity. 

It resolves itself to this: Mrs. Eddy did not 
believe in prayer in the Christian sense. I wish 
to quote some paragraphs from "Christian 
Science in the Light of Holy Scripture," by J. M. 
Haldeman, to cover the general sense of prayer 
from the standpoint of the great body of 
Christian people: 

"Christian Science stands steadfastly against 
the idea of personality in man and God. The 
record of prayer which the Bible gives shows that 
personality is the most astounding of forms. The 
individual cries out under the burden of personal 
consciousness. It is the consciousness of self, the 
weight of personality, that gives to the individual 
all his burden and pain. If he were no more 
personal than the stock or stone he would have 
no greater woe than they ; tears would never stain 
his cheeks, nor sorrow quiver in his soul. He is 
personal, and the privilege and the peril of it bid 



296 FACTS AND FABLES 

him cry to another and greater personality than 
his own. God is seen responding in all the char- 
acteristics of an answering personality. He is 
seen interfering and coming down to the level of 
the suppliant and exhorting him to continue in 
prayer. 

"Our Lord Jesus Christ spoke a parable to the 
end 'that men ought always to pray and not to 
faint.' (Luke 18:1.) 

"Prayer leads the individual to contemplate the 
personality of God and exalt it above all things. 
Going behind difficulties and laws and all impos- 
sibilities, rising superior to the impossible, the 
praying soul sees the personality of God, and 
across all intervening things of pain, or sorrow, 
or barrier of any sort, says, Thou, O God.' And 
to the praying soul that is the supreme resource ; 
not the power of God, not the resources of God, 
but God Himself, the very person of God. Aye! 
prayer as nothing else exalts the personality of 
God, and at the same time the personality of 
man." 

Since Mrs. Eddy did not believe in prayer, and 
seems to use the little permitted in her services 
chiefly to cover up the offending defect of its 
absence, what did she believe in and use as a sub- 
stitute? Two words answer this question and 
represent the whole of Mrs. Eddy's philosophy. 

These words are denial and affirmation. Affirm 
the "Allness of God," "the nothingness of mat- 
ter, sin, sickness and death." "Deny that matter, 
sin, sickness and death are anything more than 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 297 

mortal belief/' This is all there is to "Christian 
Science" demonstration as laid down by Mrs. 
Eddy. 

It is true that many "Scientists" put into their 
individual "demonstration" a spiritual outlook 
and uplift, that comes from the Bible and not 
from Mrs. Eddy at all; and in truth repudiates 
her fundamental propositions. 

She says: "A further proof of this is the dem- 
onstration, according to Christian Science, that 
by the reduction and the rejection of the claims 
of matter man is improved physically, mentally, 
morally and spiritually." (Unity of Good, p. 36.) 

"To get rid of sin, through Science, is to divest 
sin of any supposed reality." (S. & H., p. 234.) 

Salvation and forgiveness of sin in Christian 
Science is measured by the denial of matter and 
the facts of sin. It is not the act that is the sin, 
but the acknowledgment that the act is a sin. 
God, in Mrs. Eddy's "Christian Science," has no 
part in salvation. Why? Because she says that 
He knows nothing of sin; is not cognizant of it. 
God, in Mrs. Eddy's "Christian Science," has no 
part in healing, because He has no knowledge of 
sickness. She explicitly teaches that he is not in- 
dwelling, or is any part of the man who is, or can 
be sick. 

Disease, in her "Science," is the product of 
"Mortal Mind," a mind that God knows nothing 
of, much less is a part of. It is misleading for 
the "Christian Scientists" to use the poet's words, 
"Nearer than hands and feet." Such garments* 



298 FACTS AND FABLES 

do not belong to her philosophy, and repudiate it 
when used in connection with man as he is here 
and now. 

In Mrs. Eddy's philosophy the laws of Nature 
are not the laws of God, and He did not create 
them. She says : "Heat and cold are products of 
mortal mind — mortal mind produces animal heat 
and then expells it through the abandonment of 
a belief, or increases it to the point of self-destruc- 
tion." (S. &H., p. 374.) 

To Mrs. Eddy all the bacteria, all the micro- 
organisms being classified and studied by our 
bacteriologists are not independent lives, but are 
mental creations. The Pasteur Institute to the 
"Scientists" is a great source of evil, a "lazar 
house of infamy," creating new diseases with 
which to inflict mortal man. 

Of all this life the god of Mrs. Eddy's 
"Science" knows nothing. She tells us that 
"mortal mind is self -creative and self -sustained, 
until it becomes non-existent." 

I give several quotations from her, as follows : 

"I believe in matter only as I believe in evil — 
that it is something to be denied and destroyed to 
human consciousness, and is unknown to the 
Divine." 

"At best matter is only a phenomenon of mor- 
tal mind, of which evil is of the highest degree; 
but really there is no such thing as mortal mind." 
(Unity of Good, p. 50.) 

"If God knows evil at all, He must have had 
foreknowledge thereof, and if He foreknew it, 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 299 

He must virtually have intended it, or ordered it 
aforetime — foreordained it; else how could it 
have come into the world ?" (Unity of Good, 
p. 19.) 

"If such knowledge of evil were possible to 
God it would lower His rank." (Unitv of Good, 

P . 18.) 

"As God is mind, if this Mind is familiar with 
evil, all cannot be good therein." (Unity of 
Good, p. 14.) 

"If God knows that which is not permanent, it 
follows that He knows something that He must 
learn to unknow, for the benefit of our race." 
(Unity of Good, p. 13.) 

Without multiplying citations further, it be- 
comes clear to the reader that the god of Mrs. 
Eddy's "Science" has no positive and active part 
in the forgiveness of sin, or the healing of disease. 
It does not conform to, but repudiates Christian 
healing as taught and done by Jesus Christ. In- 
dividual "Scientists" bring the element of faith 
in God, as an active loving Father, into their 
healing, but it comes from the Christian teach- 
ings, not from Mrs. Eddy's propositions. 

The lectures delivered by members of the 
Lecture Board sent out by the "Mother Church" 
are misleading in this important matter. The 
dead bones of the philosophy of the many cita- 
tions we have given are covered over with the 
cloak of the works and teachings of Jesus. The 
unsuspecting and unprepared see this comely gar- 
ment, but not the facts covered up. 



300 FACTS AND FABLES 

Now don't let the phrase "the allness of God" 
carry away your sense of proportion and analysis 
because of the feeling of bigness of thought that 
accompanies it. This is what happens to most 
readers of Mrs. Eddy's high sounding writings. 
The more purchased, or borrowed, jewels a per- 
son wears on the outside, the fewer jewels of 
character will be found within. 

With this caution I quote Mrs. Eddy again in 
explanation of what her system of healing really 
is, since it is not the healing of the New Testa- 
ment. She says: "What is the cardinal point of 
the difference in my metaphysical system? This: 
That by knowing the unreality of disease, sin and 
death, you demonstrate the allness of God. This 
difference wholly separates my system from all 
others. The reality of these so called existences 
I deny, because they are not to be found in God, 
and this system is built on Him as the sole cause." 

In Mrs. Eddy's "Science" there is no matter, 
no body, no disease. Now no amount of white- 
washing over the word reality can change the 
fact that these were fundamental propositions 
with her. Again, no amount of subtleties on the 
part of her apologists can cover up the fact that 
her "allness of God" — one of her corner-stones- 
means that God knows no sin and disease ; has no 
ear for a petition for help; does not act in any 
positive movement to heal the diseases of the peti- 
tioner; has no creation of His making that could 
be sick; does not dwell in any sense in you and 
me, your neighbor and mine; has no part or part 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 301 

eel in our erring, needy lives; has no mind in our 
minds, nor our minds in His. 

As utterly wanting in common sense as all this 
is, this nevertheless belongs to Mrs. Eddy's 
foundation of "Christian Science." If in her 
ignorance and assumption she got beyond her 
depth and made herself ridiculous, the facts re- 
main, and must be looked at as they are. 

According to all that we have shown, "Chris- 
tian Science" healing, as laid down by Mrs. 
Eddy, has nothing of the Divine in it; but is sim- 
ply the denial of the existence of disease; a 
changing of a belief in matter and disease; a 
change in a mind that is not even a spark of the 
Divine Mind. 

Now the native spirituality of the majority of 
her followers let loose a spiritual energy that 
Mrs. Eddy's propositions would destroy if they 
were clear in their minds; for they are barren 
of inspiration, and have in them the despair that 
comes with the sense of the absence of God. Her 
followers see the borrowed garments, which are 
comely, and go on in the delusion that she is 
pointing the way, through a divine revelation, her 
"statement of being," etc. 

I cannot say that many of them — in ignorance 
of her fundamental propositions — do not draw 
from the great reservoir of God's spiritual energy 
that repairs the body, and enlarges the nature 
through the divine influx. I believe that if this 
is done by Christian people at all, that many of 
the Christian Scientists are thus blessed. I main- 



302 FACTS AND FABLES 

tain that such would not be the fruit of "under- 
standing" her propositions, but because of ig- 
norance of them, and the Christian knowledge of 
God that is so broadly extant. 



CHAPTER XV. 

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE HEALING (C0NT.). 

I wish to praise all the true Christianity that 
the "Scientists" individually put into Mrs. Eddy's 
pseudo-science and pseudo-religion. Their silly 
worship of her, their tardiness in this advanced 
age exhibited in their superstitions, and their idol 
worship, do not deserve praise, but such meas- 
ures as will bring them out of their delusions 
into a more normal use of their reasoning facul- 
ties. 

I acknowledge that many of the "scientists" re- 
ceive both spiritual and physiological good from 
their exercise and expectancy. I maintain that 
they make their spiritual growth in spite of their 
leader; for neither her life nor her philosophy 
have in them the seeds of spirituality, when the 
facts are laid bare by brushing aside the fables. 

I also acknowledge that the Christian Scientists 
as a body receive more physiological benefit than 
do a like number of people of the orthodox 
churches. The reason for this is that they exer- 
cise their minds to this end ; they hold an attitude 
of expectancy for bodily ills that has in it a very 
great curative factor. 

I have said before that when we find Mrs. 
Eddy condemning a thing that may seem very 
much like her method, and especially legislating 

303 



304 FACTS AND FABLES 

against it and forbidding her followers to use it, 
that if we will stop right there and search we will 
locate her and her system. She is so industrious 
and persevering in her denunciation of the mental 
healing that she learned entirely from Quimby; 
so vigorous against hypnotism and suggestion, 
that we had better take our clue from these ob- 
servations and try her healing out where she most 
condemns. So bitter against hypnotism is she 
that she wrote a by-law that must stand forever 
and forever, namely, "Members of this church 
shall not learn hypnotism on penalty of being ex- 
communicated from this church." 

In order to understand what "Christian 
Science" healing is, we shall have to pass in brief 
review the salient points in physiological psychol- 
ogy. My book Mind Power and Privileges gives 
a fuller study of the relation between the mind 
and the body. Here our space permits but a 
hasty presentation of the most vital points. 

Man's body is composed, on the material side, 
of a number of the chemical elements so widely 
distributed in and about Mother Earth. It is a 
most complex physical machine; so complex that 
medical science only touches the borders of the 
vast knowledge yet to be gained concerning it. 
Indeed, so limited is the knowledge of this won- 
derful mechanism that often the physician in his 
ignorance, but willingness, is a hindrance to it in 
its struggle for readjustment. 

The purpose of this body is that the ego or life 
within it may have a dwelling place of such pro- 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 305 

portion, shape and mechanical structure as to 
enable the ego or life to express itself according 
to its purpose and desire in this plane of its ex- 
istence. If this were not true it would have 
shaped and formed the body and its mechanism 
differently. 

I approach the subject from the premise that 
life is a guiding principle, instead of the premise 
that life is a byproduct of chemical action. I 
wish to present the ego or life of every creature 
as a creator, a designer, a builder, utilizing the 
laws of energy in the transmutation of matter 
to serve its designs and needs. This premise ap- 
plies to every creature from the simplest form of 
life, microscopic though it may be, up to the high- 
est organism as in man. 

The physical body is not one animal but count- 
less millions of animals or cells, as the individual 
units are called. Your body began to take on its 
present form about nine months before you were 
born. It then began as a single fertilized cell, the 
uniting of two lives, starting your individuality, 
your ego, yourself. 

There were wonderful plans and designs, won- 
derful latent powers in that tiny throbbing cell. 
It quickly set to work to do like its ancestry had 
done for ages upon ages. There was a mighty 
urge to get on in that tiny cell. It began to build 
and shape without loss of time. 

In an incredibly short length of time the single 
cell or body had divided itself into two cells ; these 
quickly divided into four cells; the four became 



306 FACTS AND FABLES 

eight, the eight sixteen, the sixteen thirty-two; 
and thus the number grew by each cell dividing 
into daughter cells, quickly growing to maturity, 
dividing again, and so in the short space of nine 
months millions upon millions of individual lives 
were formed, among which you reside. 

During the formation of these millions of cells 
there went on a process of what is called differen- 
tiation. The cells were separated into groups to 
which were delegated the specific labor or func- 
tion due for each group to perform. Some groups 
or classes of cells were set aside to make the 
framework of the body — the bones. Others 
formed muscles; others still formed chemical 
laboratories, such as the liver, salivary glands and 
secretory membranes. The highest group of cells 
are the cells of the brain and entire nervous 
system. 

In the brief space of nine months this marvel- 
ous unfoldment re-enacted the history of organic 
life on this planet covering unknown millions of 
years. 

Each one of these cells is an individual animal 
— a mind organism, endowed with all the funda- 
mental characteristics of every animal. It has a 
memory; learns from its experience today and 
makes use of the knowledge acquired tomorrow. 
It eats, drinks, bathes, exercises, reproduces, and 
unquestionably has its moods. It can be encour- 
aged or discouraged. In the main it faithfully 
performs its duty or labor for its own life; for 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 307 

the life of the whole organism, and in the inter- 
est of the central ego, the great self within. 

All the labor of the body is done by the indi- 
vidual cells and by them collectively. Some of 
the cells are fixed in their positions as bone, cells, 
muscle cells, etc. Some are floating cells such as 
the white corpuscles of the blood. These are the 
soldiers of the body, its standing army and police 
force. 

The fixed cells are not isolated from the mind 
or central ego, but from some station or sub- 
station where the mind-total resides there runs a 
"wire" — a nerve fibre — connecting the two, so 
that the ego can send its directing impulses or 
messages to it. This enables the central ego or 
sub-conscious mind, as we like to call it in these 
days, to oversee and direct all parts of the body, 
bringing about the wonderful co-ordination that 
eclipses all the creations of conscious effort. 

To the white blood corpuscles belong the office 
of general defense. They move about in the 
plasma of the blood and can penetrate the tissue 
and reach remote parts. They destroy invading 
germs, and neutralize poisons. It is to them that 
we owe any immunity we enjoy from infectious 
diseases. 

A more complete study of this marvelous sub- 
ject will be found in my book, 'The Power to 
Prolong Life/' in which I take a most advanced 
position on the relation of the subconscious mind 
to the blood corpuscles. 



308 FACTS AND FABLES 

A disease of the body is a disease of the cells 
of the body. Any cure is the work of the cells. 

The surgeon may bring broken bones into their 
proper positions and by mechanical supports hold 
them in their right places, but that is all ; the rest, 
the work of repair and healing, is left to the cells. 

The physician may use an antiseptic which aids 
the working cells in repairing a part, by helping to 
keep back the swarms of germs that want to at- 
tack the injured part. Sometimes the cells for 
some reason fail to perform their functions and 
some process is neglected. The physician admin- 
isters a drug which acts as a whip and causes the 
cells to put forth efforts that are productive of 
some general good. Sometimes he recognizes the 
want of a chemical element in the economy of the 
body, and renders a large service by supplying 
this need to the cells. 

Sometimes there is a foreign growth in the na- 
ture of a parasite, that logically calls for the sur- 
geon's knife. This is a mechanical aid to the 
workers of the body, and is one of the great assets 
of the race in its struggle to live well and long 
on this planet. 

If a patient is found eating too much, drinking 
too little water, breathing impure air most of the 
time, underfed, or underexercised, the wise physi- 
cian will aid the working cells of the body by sur- 
rounding them with more hygienic and favorable 
conditions. 

These are only hints of what the physician's 
province in cure is. He cannot cure ; he can help 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 309 

the cells in many ways to effect the repair or cure. 
A thorn may enter the flesh that may cause much 
trouble to the cells, to either expell or encase. The 
physician removes the thorn, and thus makes easy 
the work of the cells. 

The regular Schools of Medicine have directed 
most of their energies on the material and me- 
chanical sides of medicine. Until the last few 
years they have neglected the department that 
brings stimulation or inhibition to the cells 
through the agency of the subconscious mind or 
central ego. My own hope is large for the physi- 
cal welfare of the race in the light of an ad- 
vancing knowledge of the powers of the mind to 
build and repair the body. 

The body as we have it today is the product of 
the mind that we would invoke in its behalf. 
From this biological premise it is logical and 
scientific to exercise the mind when something 
has gone amiss and help is needed in a part, or 
on the whole. 

Our study of the mind of man has revealed to 
lis- the fact that in his usual activity he only ex- 
presses a part of his energy. We find a great 
reserve force that may be drawn upon,, and often 
is, when an individual is suddenly brought face to 
face with danger. The earthquake at San Fran- 
cisco called up the reserve forces, and bedridden 
invalids who had not walked for years fled from 
the rocking buildings unaided, and never again 
resumed their invalidism. 

Our laboratory work in the use of hypnotism. 



310 FACTS AND FABLES 

which is but a favorable state of mind for the 
operation of suggestion, has given us a clear view 
of some of the latent, unused forces of the mind 
and of the body as well. It has shown to us that 
the working cells of a part may be stimulated to 
increased activity through an increased de- 
termination on the part of the mind, or by its re- 
newed hope or faith. 

We know today that secretory organs can be 
stimulated through suggestion to greater chemical 
activity, thus facilitating the complex process of 
digestion; that the vasomotor system can be so 
influenced as to be of great aid to affected organs 
or parts ; that pain and irritations can be relieved 
while the cells are at work improving a part — in 
fact, that not only functional troubles but organic 
as well can be greatly aided, and sometimes cures 
performed that border on the miraculous. 

My own experimental work and research into 
the powers of the mind in cure has so enlarged 
my optimism as to make my conclusions seem 
very extreme to the average physician. My full 
conclusions are to be found in my works "Mind 
Power and Privileges" and "The Power to Pro- 
long Life." 

I have seen nothing performed by the "Chris- 
tion Science" healers that need call in a premise 
of the divine, but that falls naturally within the 
scope of the known powers of the mind in effect- 
ing cures. I do not mean by this that the divine 
influx, if we may so call it, has not come to the 
patient, for we do not know ; but, that any cure 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 311 

that they have performed has been equally per- 
formed by mental influence given in the absence 
of a religious premise. 

One thing must be borne in mind while consid- 
ering the cures among "Christian Scientists," 
namely, that their evidence is of very little value. 
They are very unreliable witnesses. I would say 
that the great majority are much more reliable 
than their leader, for she seems to have had no 
regard for truthfulness when exalting her works 
and cures. Such words as the following from 
her have no evidence supporting them excepting 
her own statements : 

"When I have most clearly seen and most sen- 
sibly felt that the infinite recognized no disease, 
this has enabled me instantaneously to heal a can- 
cer which had eaten its way to the jugular vein." 

"In the same spiritual condition I have been 
able to replace dislocated joints and raise the 
dying to instantaneous health." (Unity of Good, 

p. 70 

"Years ago when the mental malpractice of 
poison was undertaken by a mesmerist, to thwart 
that design I experimented by taking some large 
doses of morphine to watch the effect, and I say 
it with, tearful thanks, the drug had no effect 
upon me whatever — the hour had struck 'if they 
drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.' " 
(C. S. Journal, April, 1885.) 

Mrs. Eddy's story about her fall on the ice in 
Lynn and her divine healing the third day has 
been proven a falsehood by her own story given 



312 FACTS AND FABLES 

within a few weeks of the incident. At that time 
it had not occurred to her to make a miracle of it 
to be told by her followers as a parallel of the 
resurrection of Jesus on the third day. Dr. Cush- 
ing — still living — attended her at the time for 
about two weeks. His medical notes of the time 
and incident entirely discredits her extravagant 
story. His full statement under affidavit, made 
in 1907, is given by Georgine Milmine in her 
history of Mrs. Eddy. 

I listened to this falsehood given by one of the 
authorized "Christian Science" lecturers but a 
few days ago. This is always told by the lec- 
turers and is evidently one of the testimonies that 
must always be told by the lecturers by order of 
the by-laws. 

I do not believe that many of Mrs. Eddy's fol- 
lowers intentionally resort to fables, as did their 
leader. In looking over the testimonials in late 
editions of "Science and Health" — a hundred 
pages of them — one feels himself in the atmos- 
phere of the stock testimonials of some patent 
remedy. They were probably all sincere, and 
among them some instances of real cures of grave 
conditions. 

The following from Dr. Cabot's valuable paper, 
"One Hundred Christian Science Cures," Mc- 
Clure's Magazine, August, 1908, will throw some 
light on the reason why many of the testimonials 
are not of specific value: "In the analysis of 
these cases I am guided by my experience with 
the diagnosis naively given by patients entering 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 313 

my office for treatment — diagnosis based upon 
their own unguided observation, or upon what 
they suppose their own physician to have said to 
them. In such instances there is no possible 
motive for deception or exaggeration ; the patient 
is saying exactly what he believes ; and yet I have 
rarely found his statement to be even approx- 
imately correct; for example, when a patient 
comes to me with the statement that he has 'kid- 
ney and bladder trouble/ I generally find both 
the kidneys and the bladder sound. The patient 
has pain in his back in the region where he sup- 
poses his kidneys to be ; he interprets his 
symptoms in the light of what he has read in the 
newspaper advertisements, and what he has been 
cold by his kind friends, and arrives at what is, 
to his mind, a perfectly solid conclusion. He has 
no doubts of the diagnosis, states it as a fact, and 
asks for treatment." 

"So it is with patients coming for 'spinal 
trouble/ 'hardening of the spine/ 'inflammation 
of the spine/ or 'spinal meningitis.' They almost 
always turn out on careful examination to be suf- 
fering from some form of nervous prostration. 
In the interpretation of their sufferings and in the 
names which they attach to them they have been 
guided quite innocently by hearsay. 

"Similarly, when patients come to me for what 
they quite innocently call 'heart trouble/ and turn 
out on examination to be suffering from pain in 
the left side of the chest without any heart trouble 
at all, I accuse them of no deception but only of 



314 FACTS AND FABLES 

incapacity for the active appreciation of the value 
of evidence. 

"Certain other statements recur very often in 
the histories given in all good faith by patients, 
whether in the doctor's office or in a Christian 
Science experiment meeting. I will quote some 
of these : 'I have had a great many doctors and 
each has made different diagnosis.' 

" 'I am suffering from a complication of 
diseases — Bright's disease, liver and lung com- 
plaint and other ailments too numerous to men- 
tion.' 

" 'I have had a great many operations per- 
formed on me.' 

"Experience shows us that when a person has 
had a great many doctors, many diagnoses, many 
'diseases,' or many operations, he usually turns 
out to be suffering from nervous prostration or 
some other form of functional nervous trouble." 

Space will not permit of extensive analysis of 
Christian Science cures. I am more ready to 
credit them with cures than most physicians of 
the regular schools; for I value more highly than 
they the exercise of the mind in cure, and thus 
entertain more expectation than they. They fre- 
quently want to find the failure of mind cure — I 
want to find its success. 

The "Scientists" are boosters all the time. 
Those whose lives have been helped, whose bodies 
have been freed from former pains and distress, 
feel a gratitude that is genuine, and they express 
it. All this is more business for the local healers ; 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 315 

and they, having the financial incentive, urge on 
the testimonials. The failures are never em- 
phasized. Could the graves speak, the testi- 
monials would not all run the same, for then 
would we hear the cries from the children who 
had been neglected in the hands of ignorant heal- 
ers, to whom the material remedies — the pack of 
ice, even, is a sin. 

I wish to give the following paragraphs from a 
physician's book, the "Faith and Works of Chris- 
tian Science. ,,1 After reading the accounts of 
two hundred cases of healing recorded in the 
Christian Science Sentinel he says: 

"Most of us, I think, will view these two hun- 
dred cases with a measure of dismay, and even of 
disgust. We shall admit that many are, indeed, 
cases of healing. None the less, we shall say, here 
is a very alarming picture of a nation obsessed by 
functional disorders. So much neurasthenia, such 
decadence of logic, such passion for signs and 
wonders, such evtravagance of imagination, so 
much talk about stomach and bowels — they are 
not good reading. There is something unwhole- 
some about them. That ill-used word, morbid, 
will be at the back of our minds — there is nothing- 
morbid, we shall say, in the Bible stories of heal- 
ing/' 

"These short notes, put here as I got them, give 
but a faint sense of the ill-working of Christian 
Science. It would be easy to collect hundreds 
more. Of course to see the full iniquity of these 

l Dr. Stephen Paget, MacMillan, Publishers. 



318 FACTS AND FABLES 

spinal caries with suppuration; they also got out 
of bed and tried to hang on gymnasium bars. The 
list of operations for the day had included two 
cases for early cancer, a chronic abdominal ob- 
struction, a fractured skull with depression of 
bone, a huge ovarian cyst, and a tracheotomy. 
Nothing was done for them. At the end of a 
week of the new dispensation Christian Science 
had killed five and twenty patients, shortened the 
lives of five and twenty more, crippled five perma- 
nently, and caused unnecessary suffering to a 
hundred and fifty. These were in-patients. It 
would take many pages to describe her treatment 
of the out-patients. At a subsequent meeting at 
the Albert Hall she said that the events of this 
black week had been "nothing less than the dem- 
onstration of God's Allness through true under- 
standing." 

Since pain and sensation are protective charac- 
teristics of an organism, and are absolutely essen- 
tial to this form of life, it is wrong and benighted 
to teach children that pain is an evil. Such an ab- 
surdity, such a contradiction to existing facts 
must either cause rebellion in the inquiring minds 
of the young or so stunt their reasoning as to be 
intellectually harmful. 

To teach them that there is no body, when they 
have a sensitive, perishable body that must be pro- 
tected from harm all the time, is to discourage 
honest and intelligent inquiry. It is a cruel doc- 
trine, a selfish belief, for it makes it easy for such 
an one to "pass by on the other side" by simply 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 319 

turning away and denying that the one suffering 
is in need. 

After a child had fallen from a window and 
was carried in suffering and seriously injured, the 
mother turned away and went to a Christian 
Science meeting, "greatly rejoicing in her free- 
dom from the sense of personal responsibility." 
A boy was taken seriously ill and suffered ex- 
cruciating pain. His mother would do nothing to 
relieve him except to deny the pain. His screams 
brought the neighbors in, and the boy, pointing to 
his mother, exclaimed,, "She don't care how much 
I suffer ; she would let me die !" It does not soften 
the heart, but makes it hard. It does not enlarge 
the sense of charity, but contracts the soul, and 
shifts the burden of caring for one's neighbor 
upon an impersonal, cold principle which is re- 
pudiated by every act of nature. 

Dr. Huber from his investigations says: 
"Christian Science has stood by the bedside of an 
infant sick with diphtheria, has prevented inter- 
ference with its incantations, and has seen this 
infant choke, grow livid, gasp and expire, with- 
out so much as putting a drop of water to its 
lips ; has sacrificed the lives of little children upon 
the altar of its pseudo-religion. ,, 

This age is so full of neurasthenic people that 
any religion that makes healing an active depart- 
ment will experience a more rapid growth than 
without it. This is because neurasthenia yields 
rapidly to treatment by suggestion, and especially 
to that form of suggestion that has in it a spiritual 



320 FACTS AND FABLES 

premise. The system of healing that will renew 
the mental and moral equilibrium of a large num- 
ber of people will be given credit for healing 
many kinds of ills. If such a system never cures 
a single case of organic disease, but cures many 
cases of neurasthenia, it will be given credit for 
having cured a wide variety of organic diseases. 
Such testimony will be seriously given by those 
benefited. 

"Christian Science" has accomplished this for 
many lives. It has given a poise and new interest 
in spiritual things, greatly increased the reading 
of the Bible, though wrong reading, and through 
some of its premises has given a quietism that in 
itself has been a potent remedy. 

This is an age of over-concern. Over-concern 
means a strain and a drain upon the bodily vital- 
ity. A doctrine that will loosen the reins of this 
over-concern has healing in it. Probably the ma- 
jority of those healed and benefited by "Chris- 
tian Science ,, had previously been over-concerned 
about their health; so deeply concerned that ra- 
tional remedies prescribed by physicians were 
turned to naught by the habitual frame of mind. 

As irrational as is the doctrine of the unreality 
of the body's ills and needs, it has in it to some 
people a healing virtue. Let us analyze the con- 
clusion and see. 

The neurasthenic, and that class who border 
upon hysteria, almost invariably do themselves 
great harm by a constant introspection. Every 
slight pain or discomfort is exaggerated. If this 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 321 

becomes a habit, and with it goes a high degree 
of self-pity, the discomforts come to take on the 
form of one of many diseases. These conditions 
may multiply until the person has ailments in 
several parts of the body at once. Such conditions 
may be more painful and ruinous to the patient's 
economy of life than would be some real organic 
disease. Any treatment that will effect a cure of 
such conditions has done a service as real as if an 
organic disease had existed and was cured. 

The peculiar doctrines of "Christian Science ,, 
have been highly curative in many just such cases. 
Where over-concern about the body had de- 
veloped into a real menace the doctrine of the un- 
reality, the non-existence, of the body, became the 
lever that lifted the mind from it and let it pursue 
its way undisturbed. Where as before the chief 
concern was to examine and introspect, this new 
doctrine emphasized the sin of such concern, and 
made the denial of the body one of the chief oc- 
cupations. This form of suggestion is negative, 
but may be greatly beneficial when the chief need 
is to forget or pass with little notice the com- 
plaints of the body. Anything that will divert the 
mind from the body when sick will relieve pain 
and irritation and prove a good medicine to the 
patient of over-concern and excessive intro- 
spection. 

Greater harm lurks in constant introspection 
than many realize. Rules of diet may do more 
harm when they become matters of great concern 
than flagrant neglect of customary dietetics. Since 



322 FACTS AND FABLES 

these are psychological and physiological facts, the 
"Christian Science" aversion of the body may 
supply the very unconcern that a certain patient 
most needs, thus bringing to him an immediate 
relief. When such relief comes through just such 
laws it is to the "Scientist" a "demonstration" of 
the "nothingness of matter, and the Allness of 
God." But we must expect them to whip every- 
thing around to that issue, since they have the 
habit, even to the increasing bank account being 
a "demonstration." 

Even the tyranny of the dead, the willingness 
of the leader of "Christian Science" to sacrifice 
the intellectual life of her people to "demonstra- 
tion," may and does hold for some individuals 
a potent factor of cure. The order to not buy 
others' books, but to confine themselves exclusive- 
ly to her books, though selfish and harmful in the 
broader sense, may be good medicine to some 
people who need the rest cure. It will be good 
medicine to those whose make-up can take such 
amputations with grace. The by-law that makes 
her followers drop their clubs, societies and in 
many instances charitable works and interests, 
acts as a rest cure, and to some will give physio- 
logical benefits by taking off the pressure of 
overconcern and strain. 

The "Christian Scientists" lazily and selfishly 
"pass by on the other side," and have little con- 
cern for the "neighbor who fell among thieves." 
How much easier it is to deny that he is in need 
than to lift him upon the back of your donkey 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 323 

and, walking the hot, dusty road yourself, take 
him to a place where he can be cared for and pay 
the bill out of your own pocket. Now the part 
of the good Samaritan is being done so actively 
and energetically in so many fields of endeavor in 
our Christian churches that a great many people 
break down through over-concern and over-work. 

Few have learned the poise of quietude — the 
ability to sympathize and assist without taking 
the wear and strain. 

The "Scientists" stay away from the burial, and 
they stay away from many more things. They 
are not going to carry the burden of the world's 
work in the interest of the race. If they follow 
the lines laid down by their leader they will never 
break down through sympathy and charity; nor 
will their bodies be starved for the want of blood 
excessively used in processes of ideation. 

From the fundamental premises of Mrs. Eddy 
I cannot escape the conclusion that the "Scien- 
tists" as a body are in the nature of a parasite 
upon the race. They condemn and deny the 
very thing that the whole human family must 
safeguard, cultivate and utilize. It is like a 
cancer eating into the flesh of the body upon 
which it has engrafted itself; the very destruc- 
tion of which means its own destruction. Shall 
we follow Mrs. Eddy's premises and give no 
thought to the conservation of the chemical ele- 
ments of the soil, and thus dissipate the world's 
greatest physical asset, because she has told us 
that waving fields of golden grain are but night- 



324 FACTS AND FABLES 

mares of the mortal mind, and unnecessary in 
the life of the only man worth saving? 

We are deeply concerned in the conservation 
of all the physical resources of this planet; not 
only selfishly concerned, but thinking and sacri- 
ficing in the interest of generations yet unborn. 
Conferences and congresses, books and periodi- 
cals, are paid for to the end that the race may 
have more food, to make more blood, to produce 
stronger bodies and clearer brains. 

Now, the "Scientists" condemn this material 
concern as the cardinal sin; at the same time 
reaching out for wealth as no other religious 
peoples do. Their leader left a by-law govern- 
ing the Mother Church, that, coupled with the 
money-gathering machinery she installed, re- 
minds one of the proverb of the street: "Keep 
all you get, and get all you can." The by-law 
reads: "Donations from this church shall not be 
made without the written consent of the Pastor 
Etneritas*" The written consent cannot now 
be had, since she has "passed on." 

Life is a school in which we are all learners. 
Many of us take our school work too seriously 
perhaps; at least, so seriously that we need an 
occasional holiday from our strivings and our 
questionings. Some find a marvellous "demon- 
stration" in a fishing trip of a month or more. 
Just yesterday I had a great "demonstration." 
In prosecuting this work I have at times drawn 
upon my reserve forces more than is discreet. 
Yesterday was one of those days. I needed to 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 325 

get away from this theme, to lift the burden of 
it from my mind. Some kind of play would 
do this best, so I went to the ball game, and two 
hours there was the best medicine I could have 
taken. While it did not "demonstrate the noth- 
ingness of matter, nor the Allness of God/' for 
the umpire got a severe hit from a foul straight 
off the bat, and one of the players burst open a 
department of his speech center, which should 
be kept under lock, suggesting something akin 
to mortal mind, — it did demonstrate the value 
of forgetting, unloading, quitting at times. 

There is a class of neurasthenics who are un- 
derworked. They have not enough responsibil- 
ities, and are wanting in a purpose in life. What- 
ever will quicken the interest in these, give a 
new' purpose, add a responsibility or inspire to 
service, may prove a miracle-working medicine 
to them. If a shipload of globe-trotting, self- 
pampering health-seekers were shipwrecked upon 
Robinson Crusoe's island, and there had to fight 
for subsistence against the elements and scant 
provisions of Nature, the most of them would 
get well, and the stature of their manhood and 
womanhood would be enlarged. 

For a few days after the San Francisco earth- 
quake many of this class forgot themselves, and 
in the common needs of the hour, stood more 
erect as men and women of character than ever 
in their habitual surroundings of plenty. In the 
self- forget fulness that goes with true service, 
there develops an unconscious strength that will 
lengthen man's days. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE HEALING (CONT.) 

As we have seen, there is a temporary 
value as a rest cure in some of the doctrines 
of Christian Science. There is one practice 
that is positive and highly commendable 
among the "Scientists." This is the state 
of expectancy they maintain for health. As a 
religious body they maintain a higher degree of 
expectancy for health, make larger demands from 
the powers that be for the welfare of the body, 
than do a like number of people of other religious 
bodies. If this be true, they put into operation 
psychological laws that conduce to health, which 
the most of Christian denominations neglect. 

This neglect is a sin of omission, both from the 
standpoint of physiological psychology, and from 
the requirements and teachings of the New Testa- 
ment. Space will not permit me to enlarge upon 
this important theme, but it will be taken up in 
full in a volume to follow. Suffice it to say that 
we owe a debt to Mrs. Eddy and her ardent fol- 
lowers for the part they have played in the 
"demonstration" of psychological laws in the 
interest of health. 

All the working processes of the body, the mi- 
croscopic cells or animals of which we are com- 
posed, are influenced by the attitude of mind 
326 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 327 

habitually held toward them. They can be 
encouraged or discouraged, made to sing at their 
work, or lag in sluggish moods. A placid state 
of expectancy of normal health has in it a health- 
giving potency. Thus it is that extreme, even 
illogical, beliefs, that are on the side of optimism, 
are productive of large measures of health. The 
"Scientists" exercise a high degree of this help- 
ful state of mind, and get large returns from 
their expectancy. They always score a "dem- 
onstration" from it, in the interest of their funda- 
mental proposition, "the Allness of God and the 
nothingness of matter." 

Since we have not acquired this habit, nor 
belief that their yard-stick contains three feet, 
we can place the result, or "demonstration," 
where it belongs. We feel that they have no 
secret road to the divine, but that they operate 
the same kind of laws that we are permitted to 
use, and thus the known laws of mind and body 
are to be applied to their "demonstrations." We 
will admit that they are a peculiar people, but 
not in the sense of having manna showered upon 
them of which we know nothing or have not the 
privilege to partake. 

Upon the whole, I believe that a low expectancy 
of health, with a high state of expectancy of 
ill health, is a more serious condition than having 
one of many organic diseases. Now, we must 
credit Christian Scientists with maintaining a 
high degree of helpful expectancy. We must 
charge many of our other religious people with 



328 FACTS AND FABLES 

maintaining a low state of expectancy of health. 
There is a department in the religious economy 
of the latter that has been seriously neglected. 
This theme is one of the most important in the 
life of the individual, also of the race. No 
knowledge that the race is struggling for will 
prove of higher value than that which will un- 
lock the latent dynamics of the soul. I have the 
feeling that in the measure in which we discover 
to ourselves the powers of the soul, we will 
brush aside the mist from our eyes that hides 
from us the Great Over-Soul. 

There is a healing potency in the "Christian 
Science" doctrine of the "Allness of God/' This 
is true in spite of the illogical premises that Mrs. 
Eddy ignorantly engrafted upon this time- 
honored doctrine. But it must be remembered 
that few of her followers see the flaws in her 
metaphysics, and, therefore, do not experience 
their retarding influence. They are relieved or 
stimulated by the bigness of the phrase. 

We experience an exhilaration from a certain 
class of music. We cannot explain just why this 
is. It does not admit of intellectual analysis, 
but the effect remains just the same. We have 
been subconsciously exercised by the music. 
How much helpful ideation the music has caused 
to take place in the subconscious stratum of mind 
we never know. 

It is just so with words. Mrs. Eddy's writ- 
ings abound with some stirring words. Her 
treatment of the phrase "The Allness of God," 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 329 

reduces itself to an absurdity; but this passes 
unnoticed by the ardent seeker who is in quest of 
help, and who has approached the book "Science 
and Health" with a mistaken idea that it is a 
work of scientific and metaphysical value. They 
receive a spiritual uplift that has the balm of 
healing in it; not from the ideas, but from the 
words. Each patient takes these words and 
unconsciously works them into ideations of his 
own. The word love, repeated over and over, 
or seen upon the wall constantly, will produce 
its kind in some measure. The word harmony 
has a quieting effect. "Truth" gives a feeling 
of erudition, of knowledge. The word Life is 
quickening in its influence, and the word God 
always is an inspiration. 

It is in the subconscious region of the mind 
total that such words are quickly formed into 
ideations that send their corresponding influences 
over the body, to every working cell. It is in this 
region that our prevailing moods are made for 
us. We awaken in the morning from dreams 
that have been depressing, and find that it takes 
some effort to shake off the moods that cling to 
us. The influence of words not formed into 
sentences has been clearly observed from experi- 
ments in hypnotism. The value of the hypnotic 
state in such experiments lies in the fact that we 
have the normal consciousness asleep, and the 
subconscious mind stratum alert and active to 
suggestions, and laid bare, as it were, for our 
study. 



330 FACTS AND FABLES 

A class of young men, such as respond to the 
hypnotist's invitation to become subjects for pub- 
lic exhibitions, were placed in the hypnotic state. 
All five senses were active, but with the normal 
consciousness in abeyance. I commanded them 
to listen with marked attention to every word 
I spoke. For one half hour I repeated, with 
feeling, the following list of words: Peace, joy, 
comfort, trust, hope, life, beauty, cheer, Christ, 
love, heaven. 

I took one at a time into another room and 
there awakened them. I then asked them to 
describe how they felt, and so clear was the 
evidence of the wholesome influence of that 
beautiful group of words, that I was impressed 
with the feeling that a criminal might be trans- 
formed through words alone, repeatedly placed 
upon the subconscious mind. My subject, when 
awake, could not give a single word that I had 
repeated. The words were not a part of the 
conscious memory. However, they had pro- 
duced subconscious moods that affected the whole 
mind, though the subjects could not explain why 
they felt so illuminated. 

Mrs. Eddy left a by-law, which cannot be 
changed, which says: "Members of this church 
shall not learn hypnotism on penalty of being 
excommunicated from this church." My pre- 
vious statement applies here; namely, that if she 
condemns a thing that suggests her methods, that 
her fluttering away gives us the clue to our 
search. Take suggestion (hypnotism) out of 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 331 

"Christian Science' ' healing and it would be quite 
barren of "demonstrations." 

This brings us to the analysis of the "Christian 
Science" healer's method of treatment. In the 
main, the method is the same today as when 
Quimby taught it to Mrs. Eddy, and she taught 
it to Kennedy, Spofford and others. Some of the 
doctrines that go with it are not Quimby's. We 
have too much regard for his memory to attrib- 
ute them to him. But the essential method is 
the same, and it is one of the most effective sys- 
tems of mental healing in vogue today. 

We have conclusive evidence that Quimby had 
developed the telepathic faculty. This we recog- 
nize from the fact that he was able to give the 
symptoms of his patients without any word from 
them. He gained their confidence by describing 
in detail how they felt, and what they believed 
about themselves. He then stated his philosophy 
of disease, which was, in brief, that a disease of 
the body was there, because the image of that 
disease had been held in the mind. He did not 
deny that there was a disease of the body, but 
he maintained that it could only be cured by 
eradicating the image of the disease held in the 
mind of the patient. 

Now, this was at a time before the subcon- 
scious mind and its characteristics, as we know 
them today, were understood. He wrought well 
with the psychological material of his day. The 
obstructive premises of mesmerism he, to some 
extent, brushed aside. He learned that he not 



332 FACTS AND FABLES 

only could receive the subconscious impressions 
from his patients, but that he could mentally im- 
press an image upon the deeper seat of his 
patient's mind. A great part of his work was in 
the nature of silent treatment, a method that 
develops telepathy. 

His method consisted largely in explaining his 
point of view to his patient, and mentally im- 
pressing an image of health and perfection upon 
his patient's mind. 

This, in a sentence, is the method of the 
"Christian Science" healer today. Much of his 
work is done in silence. He does not go into 
details about the disease, but it is rather his 
purpose to ignore it entirely, since his premise is 
that there is no disease, only in belief. To de- 
stroy the belief or "error," as it is called, is what 
constitutes a cure. 

He usually first takes up the enemy in thought 
(malicious animal magnetism, the Christian 
Science Devil) and having thus posted his sen- 
tries, begins to mentally deny the "error," or 
disease. Now, this is not done in detail, or in 
any specific nature, such as to suggest that an 
organ would act in any given way, for that would 
be to give recognition to the body ; but the denial 
of the "error" is in a blanket form, covering 
all the "errors" that might exist, even to the 
big "error" — the existence of a body at all. 

Now, this is what I call pot-shooting in the 
dark; but they do hit the "error" many times, 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 333 

and in neurasthenical and hysterical cases they 
frequently bring down a bunch of them. 

It reminds me of shooting rats when I was a 
boy. The rats were very numerous and very 
wary, seldom showing themselves in the day- 
time. I put some tempting feed in a corner, so 
arranged that they had to remain there to eat, 
as they could not carry it away. It was in a 
dark corner of the cow shed where they felt 
safe. I fixed a rest for my shot gun in such a 
way that the gun would point straight toward the 
feed The rest pointed through a hole in the 
shed. After dark I quietly approached the gun 
and waited until it seemed, by the noise, that all 
the rats in the neighborhood had gathered in that 
corner. All I had to do was to pull the trigger. 

The carnage I wrought recalls Mrs. Eddy's 
description of the "mortal mind"; namely, "that 
dismal cell and slaughter house of infamy." 

In treatment,"Christian Science" has one name 
for all diseases, and disease germs. It covers 
them all with the word "error." How easy that 
is, instead of the array of names the bacteriol- 
ogists have brought us from their laborious re- 
searches. If the "Christian Scientist" were true 
to his philosophy he would not screen his house 
in the tropics, but would let the mosquito bore 
into the flesh with its yellow-fever infected 
proboscis as much as it wished. He would sit 
still and deny its existence. But he does not. 
He avoids the "error" and blames its existence 
upon the preponderance of mortal mind. 



334 FACTS AND FABLES 

There is one place where the "Christian Scien- 
tist" is profuse in his use of dreadful names. 
That is when he describes the many things of 
which he has been cured. In this day the healer 
is careful to leave the very bad cases to the 
regular physician, and, also, to call him in just in 
time to relieve himself of his moribund patients. 
Mrs. Leonard served Mrs. Eddy in her house- 
hold for years, and when diabetes was about to 
close her earthly career, Mrs. Eddy turned her 
out of her house at Concord to die elsewhere. 
Though she claimed to have instantaneously 
cured a cancer that had eaten away the flesh until 
the jugular vein was exposed, her own sister- 
in-law died of cancer in the care of a regular 
physician, after having been under the treatment 
for a long time of a "Christian Science" healer. 

We do not present these points to discredit 
"Christian Science" healing, but to warn against 
their claims. For many ailments there is great 
help to be had from the healer's methods; but, 
when he calls small-pox "a mortal belief," to be 
destroyed by going to an experience meeting, 
he becomes a public menace. The inspiration 
he gets at his experience meeting, may help him 
to forbear while the disease runs its course, and 
may even help the body in many ways to fight 
the disease, it has no power to prevent him giv- 
ing it to his neighbor. 

A case under my present observation will illus- 
trate the danger lurking in this blanket form 
of treatment. The patient is a business man 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 335 

whose close application to business for years had 
cost him his health. After having run the whole 
course of medical treatment for years, only to 
steadily lose ground, he was induced to go to 
one of the most influential healers in the city. 
For over a year he had to resort to enemas of 
water or oil to void the colon. In that time it 
had never acted once without this help, nor would 
drugs bring the results. 

He took his treatment every day for nine days. 
His healer told him to leave off all drugs and 
other methods of treatment. On the ninth day 
the patient explained to him that his bowels had 
not voided in the nine days and suggested the 
use of water to bring relief. To this the healer 
made objection, presumably on the ground that 
it was surrendering to matter. Mrs. Eddy did 
away with the baptismal service, probably on the 
same grounds, and very learnedly dogmatized on 
the uselessness of bathing an infant every day. 
She says, "The daily ablutions of an infant are 
no more natural or necessary than would be 
the process of taking a fish out of water every 
day and covering it with dirt, in order to make 
it thrive more vigorously thereafter in its native 

element Water is not the natural 

habitat of humanity." 

When the healer objected to the use of water 
after so many days, and told the patient that 
he need not worry about his business, for he 
would "demonstrate" it into ever increasing suc- 
cess, the patient's common sense came to his 



336 FACTS AND FABLES 

relief and he applied the needed remedy without 
delay. A surgical operation, performed a short 
time after this incident, proved that the healer's 
advice would have proven fatal. The intelligence 
exhibited by this healer was in no wise superior 
to that of the superstition of certain benighted 
people in lost corners of Palestine. Disease 
spreading flies are permitted to literally eat out 
and, along with the disease germs, destroy the 
eyes of infants and children, because the fly is 
held to be sacred. The flies are not destroyed 
or molested by the parents because of this super- 
stition. The "Christian Science" mother who 
permitted her child to die, it having by mistake 
drunk some carbolic acid, exhibited the same 
quality of intelligence when she refused the prof- 
fered aid which would have saved the child. She 
telephoned to the chief of healers, but he, being 
busy, replied that he could not go in person, but 
that he would give absent treatment. The treat- 
ment was a denial of the reality, harm and exist- 
ence of carbolic acid, and an affirmation of the 
Allness of God. 

A healer was visiting with her next door neigh- 
bor when a child came running in crying that he.r 
little sister had just been badly scalded with hot 
water and urging her to come at once to her 
home. The healer very quietly replied "Run 
home and tell your mother to leave the claim with 
me and God." For the next hour she chatted 
and laughed about trivial things, and never once 
alluded to the suffering child. She had mentally 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 337 

declared "The nothingness of matter" and "the 
Allness of God." No sympathy went out to 
the sufferer; that would have been an acknowl- 
edgement of the "error," the scalding and pain. 
Such practices and premises harden the heart, 
and turn the word love into a tinkling symbol, 
a soulless abstraction. 

If common sense did not overrule Mrs. 
Eddy's theories, "Christian Science" healers 
would be a great menace to the innocent. As it 
is, they are only a part of the guides, for law 
and common sense walk alongside and keep 
things reasonably normal. 

The healer explains to his patient that there is 
but one mind, and that it is this mind that he 
uses in healing. The "treatment" can be prose- 
cuted quite as well with the patient absent from 
the healer. If the patient is worse he will tele- 
phone or telegraph his healer for special absent 
treatment. The healer may receive this urgent 
call while at dinner with friends. He takes up 
the thought of his patient for a moment, without 
a break in the dinner. He can treat just as many 
such patients as can pay their bills. Why not? 
From his premise, it is the divine mind that he 
is dispensing, and, since it is all in all, there is 
no limit to the amount that is available. 

Now, let us test this one mind in the light 
of Mrs. Eddy's fundamental propositions, to see 
"if the spirit be of God or man." 

The words "Mental Malpractice" occur in 
many places in her books. She is not sparing in 



338 FACTS AND FABLES 

her anathema of this awful thing — whatever it 
is. She lays down some commands in the Church 
Manual upon the thing. "Members will not 
intentionally, or knowingly, mentally malprac- 
tice." "No member shall enter a complaint of 
mental malpractice for a sinister purpose." 

So grave an offense is this thing, that she 
reserved the right to punish the offender, without 
a trial of any kind. She claimed to be able to 
know by the omnipresence of her mind if any- 
one practiced the forbidden thing. Her by-law 
on this point says: "If the author of Science 
and Health shall bear witness to the offense of 
mental malpractice, it shall be considered a 
sufficient evidence thereof." Nothing short of 
excommunication is the penalty for this offense. 
It seems to have been charged against Mrs. 
Stetson. 

What is this thing? As near as I can find, it 
is hypnotism, belief in Theosophy, Spiritualism, 
New Thought, psychology, mental treatment, as 
practiced by those not authorized by "Christian 
Science," suggestion, telepathy, the workings of 
the "mortal mind," and about everything else 
outside the Great Wall of "Christian Science." 

To be more specific, it is probably the exercise 
of any mind not the "One Mind" of Mrs. Eddy's 
fundamental propositions. 

Now, the healer gives absent treatment to his 
very sick patient. It is ostensibly the "One 
Mind" of "Christian Science" that he invokes, 
or urges on, or uses in behalf of the sick. But 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 339 

Mrs. Eddy laboriously explains that the "One 
Mind*' of "Christian Science" is not, or could 
not be, cognizant of sickness, or of anyone who 
could be sick. She thereby excludes the "One 
Mind/' from the healer's treatment. She even 
says that such knowledge on the part of God 
would annihilate the creature. 

Since, according to her, it is not the mind of 
God that is invoked in behalf of the patient, it 
must be plain "mortal mind," suggestion, "mental 
malpractice," which she places her ban upon, that 
she uses. In other words, it resolves itself to 
the fact that the "healers" are plain people like 
ourselves, and that this claim of a corner on 
something received from within the Holy of 

Holies is but a . Ask any newsboy on the 

street and he will name it for you. 

To find another reason for Mrs. Eddy's denun- 
ciation of "mental malpractice," we will have to 
review, in brief, her teachings on "Malicious 
Animal Magnetism," the thing that terrorized 
her life to the end. When Mrs. Eddy loudly 
cries, "Stop, thief!" don't lose time and oppor- 
tunity in chasing the designated thief, but look 
in her pocket for the purse. So when she has 
so much to say against telepathy, or absent treat- 
ment, for sinister purposes, we may be quite cer- 
tain that she uses it herself. 

No one has believed more firmly in telepathy, 
or in the power to impress a mental influence 
upon another person's mind, at any distance, 
than have the "Scientists," ever since Mrs. Eddy 



340 FACTS AND FABLES 

charged Richard Kennedy with maliciously 
influencing her. When she believed that others 
used it for evil purposes, it was M. A. M., 
"mortal mind," the devil; but whenever she 
used it against someone it was the "divine mind." 

Was it the mind of God, which she says 
knows no evil, that she directed in her P. M. 
society, when she and her bodyguard attempted 
to mentally impress arsenical poisoning and 
tuberculosis upon Kennedy, Spofford, Arnes and 
others? If it is true, as Mr. Peabody maintains, 
that she ordered her expert to "treat" her son 
"out of the body," only four years ago, I ask, 
was it the pure mind of God that was being used 
for so monstrous a purpose? 

When, some twenty years ago, Mrs. Eddy 
ordered all her healers to destroy all books that 
were in the way, and a lady, whom I know, 
refused to do so, was ordered to be "treated 
out of the body," I ask, was that the mind that 
knows no evil? Or was it the primitive in man 
and woman, the kind that makes necessary our 
prisons and jails? 

This lady was an authorized healer, and, when 
the order came, refused to submit to so tyran- 
nical an edict. She continued to heal and teach, 
but was hindered in every way possible by those 
who were sent to do her harm. "Scientists" 
followed her from state to state and sat in the 
front rows of her audiences and "treated" against 
her. Her faith was in God, not in Boston, and 
their threats and annoyances availed nothing. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 341 

Others, in like situations, are said to have suc- 
cumbed to the "treatment." I take it that it was 
not the treatment, but their auto-suggestions, and 
fear of the "treatment" that destroyed them. 

The editor of a well known magazine was 
assailed by the sharpshooters ordered from Bos- 
ton to "treat him out." He believes that they 
would have prevailed, had they not missed one 
day's treatment. This was before Mrs. Eddy 
died. What the belief of the present powers in 
Boston may be, I am not in a position to say. 
Time will tell. This much I do believe : They 
will carry out the policies of their leader, and will 
hold on to the "Mother Church" bonanza at 
any cost — to others. 

My work, Mind Power and Privileges, gives 
a detailed study of telepathy. My own laboratory 
work upon this vital subject has proven the fact 
that one mind can send a message or suggestion 
to another mind at any distance. While this is 
true, and the reader fully realizes that I will be 
a thorn in the flesh of the "Scientists" by such 
an "obnoxious" book as this, my knowledge of 
the human mind is such as to make me free. 

Some real arsenic or a bludgeon would, no 
doubt, successfully "treat me out of the body." 
My bones are not heavy and, unlike Mrs. Eddy, 
"the hour has not struck" with me "if they 
drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them." 

I will nevertheless travel without special train, 
with a guard engine fore and aft, since I have 



342 FACTS AND FABLES 

no commercial corner upon the New Jerusalem 
with which to pay for such indulgences. 

Mrs. Eddy left a by-law covering the point, 
showing how seriously she took her own weap- 
ons: "It shall be the duty of every member 
of this church to defend himself against aggres- 
sive mental suggestion." 

There are today upwards of five thousand 
authorized "Christian Science" healers and teach- 
ers. These are supposed to be expert telepathists, 
and many of them are. Their method of treat- 
ment develops this faculty. They, and the man- 
agement at Boston, are a secret organization. 
They will carry out any order that they believe 
Mrs. Eddy left, or will send. She was a fighter, 
and was not backward in the choice of her 
weapons. Her attitude toward Christian people, 
and all that stood in her way, was that they were 
"error," "mortal mind," and that preaching the 
Gospel was to destroy error; so, from these 
premises, one need not be surprised at any length 
to which he will find the fanatical going. 

To the "Scientists," Mrs. Eddy was the last 
and highest Oracle to this earth. When she 
brushed aside the sacraments left by Jesus, they 
do likewise. When she injected herself into the 
twenty-third Psalm, they accept it with relish. 
When she took the Golden Rule out of the Lord's 
Prayer, and made a self-seeking, partisan clan 
of them, by order of special by-laws, they marvel 
at her wisdom. She took the milk of human 
kindness out of the word "neighbor," and put 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 343 

into it a partisan sense on the one hand, and the 
bitterest of hate on the other. She created a 
devil for them to fear, and ran the devil, not 
into swine, but into you and your next door 
neighbor. 

If you do not believe that the "Scientists" are 
a clan, and wield the weapon of boycott, just take 
a stand for your Master; if you are a Christian 
merchant, and help to inform your community 
of the mutilations of the beautiful teachings of 
the man of Galilee, by this self-styled Messiah, 
your eyes will be opened. 

It would appear that some of the periodicals 
have discovered the fact of the "Christian 
Science" boycott and, realizing that the Christian 
people of the many denominations do not use 
such weapons, and are not slaves to anyone's 
orders, are making overtures for this rapidly 
growing "Christian Science" patronage. 

If you believe the word love, which is sounded 
so many times in their readings, is genuine, just 
take it upon yourself to see that the innocent 
are safeguarded against the fables in "Christian 
Science;" and you will discover the antithesis, 
which was the ruling passion of their leader's 
life. They were not ordered to pray for you, 
but to defend themselves against you. 

Whenever in this day a people are absolutely 
governed by the premise that their leader is the 
one and only mouthpiece of God; that through 
him or her He lays down definite laws upon 
great and minor issues ; there will always be 



344 FACTS AND FABLES 

found a contempt for the laws of the land, and a 
sectarianism that holds in it the element of hate, 
and the secret wish to domineer and control. 

Such premises do not permit of the policy of 
the truly helpful in this age; the surrender of 
much that they hold, and the amalgamation of 
the best they have with the best that other people 
have. A leader who is so partisan as to be 
wanting in all reciprocity, who condemns all that 
others hold, and commands her followers to stay 
inside their own narrow confines and have little 
in common with outsiders, is always mischievous 
and dangerous, and that part of the following 
who heartily acquiesce, are also mischievous and 
dangerous. 

I marvel that editors and associate editors 
who write long philippics upon the slightest 
abuses of representative government, will sit in 
mute subjection in "Christian Science ,, services 
and acquiesce to the most autocratic and un- 
American form of Government instituted in 
the history of this country. The innocent take 
them for their guide-posts and walk in without 
question. Mark Twain said there were more 
ways to get out of "Christian Science'' than to 
get in. Once in, there follows underhanded 
mischief to him who bolts the order. Try it and 
see how much love follows you when you go 
out. 

It is not the stage smile of a leader, or the 
spiritual countenance created by highly paid 
artists, that determines the worth or the harm of 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 345 

a propaganda, but it is the fundamental princi- 
ples underlying the system promulgated. Any 
system of religion that muzzles the voice of its 
adherents; lays the blame of their shortcomings 
upon those outside their high walls, and prosti- 
tutes prayer to self-seeking, and their own good 
only, is a menace to the progress of the race. 

Of those Christian "Scientists" who have been 
led in innocence, by the borrowed cloaks of 
comeliness, to lift their hearts in loving reverence 
to the God of the gentle Galilean, and have 
received physiological good through this spiritual 
energy, I have only words of praise. I further 
have words of thanks for the part they have 
taken in aiding to show to this age the mar- 
velous worth of spiritual energy directed in 
behalf of the ailing body. 

It is here that inquiring minds working in 
many avenues of research, along with the 
spiritually attuned, show what spiritual uplift 
and spiritual energy holds for the healing of 
the body. It is here that this age is to make its 
greatest discoveries of highest value to the race. 
Together we are working out a science of con- 
duct that will not deny or condemn the temple 
in which we dwell, but that will make us marvel 
at its beauty, and its wondrous fitness; and will 
give to each the reins of life to guide the course 
as creators, rejoicing in the universe in which 
we dwell, and enabling us to fill the measure of 
this incarnation with the fulness of joy that goes 
with a life of completed function and long and 
loving service. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THERE IS A "JOKER" IN EVERY CHRISTIAN 
SCIENCE MOVE. 

Religious cults have usually had their incep- 
tion in religious zeal and sincerity. Even Mo- 
hammedanism, with all its present-day enmity 
toward all outside its walls, sprang into life 
because of religious fervor in the heart of one 
man. Mahomet attracted to himself his first 
band of followers because of his fervent worship 
of the one God learned of from Christian schol- 
ars. His conquest with the sword was an out- 
growth of excessive zeal, a low conception of 
God, and the influence of a people and environ- 
ment in which the sword settled all issues, even 
things spiritual. Though he made reprisals of 
the wealth and the goods of the tribes that quickly 
fell under his invincible sway, it was not the 
wealth that attracted him, but his zeal to conquer 
the world for "Allah." 

Mormonism had its inception in the mind of a 
leader who had an ambition to stand at the head 
of a people as their spiritual and temporal leader. 
He had a vision of a people who would work 
together in the interest of the entire following. 
A Utopian scheme of communism— a community 
of interest — fired the zeal of the founder, and 
first prophets of Mormonism. There was no 
346 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 347 

low purpose to exploit a people. That has 
developed under the late "prophets" and "revel- 
ators" of the Mormon Church. 

"Christian Science" stands unique as a religion, 
in that it did not spring from religious zeal, or 
from an alt rustic scheme in the interest of a 
future following; but it had its inception in 
purely a dollar scheme in the sole interest of the 
one w r ho is revered by tens of thousands today 
as the Mother, Leader, and final Christ. 

Mahomet made conquest of the wealth-laden 
caravans of the enemies who had driven him and 
his little band of worshippers from Mecca. He 
divided the spoils of conquest with his followers 
from the very first, with admirable generosity. 
Measured by the standard of his time, his treat- 
ment of his own followers was above reproach. 
His life was lived in the open before them. His 
early successors were true to the same spirit of 
self-sacrifice and fairness toward those who 
called upon the Allah of Islam. 

The early Mormon prophets were faithful to 
their own people, had far-reaching visions for 
them from the very first. Greed, except in wives, 
was a development of latter day prophets. 

The founder of the "Christian Science" cult 
began her work as a vender of another's wares, 
not as a seer, with a vision to emancipate a peo- 
ple. Necessity to meet the needs of the body, 
was the urge that impelled her to seek purchasers 
for her first wares — the Quimby manuscripts. 
Those manuscripts were her sole stock in trade, 



348 FACTS AND FABLES 

and were the means of her own emancipation 
from a purposeless and poverty-stricken life. 
Unlike Mahomet and the early prophets of Mor- 
monism, she exploited her early followers, and 
continued to exploit them in vending her wares, 
even up to the hour of her death. While she 
fired their zeal and worship with the tale that 
she was "on the Mount communing with God in 
their behalf," her brain was devising more wares 
to sell to her worshipful followers. 

"Christian Science/' through Mrs. Eddy, had 
its inception as a commercial venture. Churches 
were formed as distributing agencies for wares, 
with the C. S. brand and trade mark. Its sales- 
men received no commission for the sale of 
C. S. goods, but all hands made money for the 
Mother. She, however, very generously per- 
mitted those who paid her exorbitant prices for 
a few hours of her wisdom, to teach the same to 
others. They must not charge as much as the 
Mother did, for, of course, no "student" could 
impart as much of the Holy Spirit as could the 
Mother who was the "voice of God to this age." 

Every new healer became a new sales-center 
for the Mother's wares. Each patient under 
the healer was urged to own a copy of the Com- 
forter — "Science and Health." So effective has 
this sales system been that the official boast of 
"Christian Scientists" is that no book, excepting 
the Bible, is read as much to day as is "Science 
and Health." No official statement of the num- 
ber in circulation can be had. When the editions 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 349 

had reached 440,000, for some reason, the man- 
agement ceased numbering the editions. 

The "Mother's" greed for money is well illus- 
trated by the statements of two groups of mem- 
bers that withdrew from her church in its early 
vicissitudes. When eight members of the earli- 
est church withdrew they gave as their reason — 
among other things — their Leader's "departure 
from the straight and narrow road made mani- 
fest by frequent ebullitions of temper, love of 
money, and the appearance of hypocrisy." When 
another group of members withdrew from her 
church, in 1888, they said: "We stand the brunt 
and burden of 'Christian Science' and Mrs. 
Eddy gets the money and the glory." 

Even the losses sustained in the first publica- 
tion of the Comforter were borne by students, 
while Mrs. Eddy had her own money securely 
invested. When it became a financial success 
she then became sole Mother to it. She sent 
"students" to other states to prepare the way for 
her, and when their own money was all spent 
she blamed them with being influenced with 
"Malicious Animal Magnetism." 

Mrs. Eddy's greatest faith was in money. I 
believe she intended her entire following to do as 
she said for them to do, "follow Christ as I 
have done." Now, since Christ in "Christian 
Science" is "Truth," and Mrs. Eddy's estimate 
of "Truth" was money, and her faith in money 
was unlimited, I believe that she has given the 
money cue to her whole following. As the get- 



350 FACTS AND FABLES 

ting of money was the mainspring behind her 
zeal, as she left a motto for the Mother Church 
— in the by-law — forbidding the church to "make 
donations/' "keep all you get, and get all you 
can," I can see the same dominant character 
gradually engrafting itself upon the "Christian 
Science" constituency. 

"Christian Science" is, as they say, a "practical 
religion." As they do not seek to learn what 
Jesus did, so much as they do what Mrs. Eddy 
did ; and, since it is so much more convenient to 
use Mrs. Eddy as a pattern than the harder way 
of the Man who had no riches on earth, except 
those in the hearts of men, I believe that we have 
in our midst a church that is following the vision 
of its self-styled Christ, a vision that sees 
unlimited conquest through the power of money. 

I will hazard a prophecy. My conclusions 
come from my study of Mrs. Eddy's history, 
her writings and her church government. She 
has seen to it that her followers separate them- 
selves from others, that they remain a clan of 
one narrow mind. She has put them at enmity 
with all those outside her faith, through her 
mischievous doctrines of "mortal mind" and 
"malicious animal magnetism." She has, in 
effect, made a devil of all those who do not 
bow down to her Allah. The "elect" are "Chris- 
tian Scientists." The only charity Mrs. Eddy 
taught her followers was to make "Christian 
Scientists." Let the rest of the world spend its 
money for the poor and needy, build orphanages 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 351 

and hospitals, but let "Christian Scientists" con- 
serve theirs and use it for propaganda only. It 
is not better food and shelter that the poor need, 
it is "Christian Science." If the "Scientists" 
make a show of material charities it is because of 
the glaring fact of the absence of charity in Mrs. 
Eddy's life. She exacted from her students all 
the traffic would bear for the "gift of the Holy 
Ghost." Peter said to the man who offered to 
buy the gift, "Thy money perish with thee." 
Mrs. Eddy said, "Cash in advance, or perish 
without 'Christian Science/ " 

So deep-seated is this cash-in-advance policy, 
that I find where the poor are being treated by 
healers, where a city has been divided into wards, 
a healer delegated to each ward (ward healers), 
that a nominal sum, say five cents, is charged 
for each treatment. Why is this? Its answer 
is to be found in the fundamental principle of 
"Christian Science"; namely, money. It is not 
the five cents for the treatment that is wanted, it 
is to save the Golden cornerstone of "Christian 
Science," the principle of pay in terms of legal 
tender. Mrs. Eddy taught that the pay was one 
of the secrets intrusted to her while "on the 
Mount, face to face" with the commercial god 
who dictated the inscriptions upon the tablets 
of her "Science." 

Now to my prophecy: You will find that 
"Scientists" will be so practical, that when they 
have become a considerable part of any com- 
munity, that a department store, for instance, 



352 FACTS AND FABLES 

will pass into the hands of "Scientists," and that 
the local constituency will throw its trade and 
every influence toward the success of the "Scien- 
tist" institution, and for the ruination of its 
competitor. Have we any precedent for this 
extreme vision? We have precedent that counts 
with the "Scientists": namely, Mrs. Eddy's own 
methods. When Richard Kennedy, in the early 
seventies, broke off his unequal partnership with 
Mrs. Eddy and set up practice by himself, she 
attempted to ruin his business by the most 
vicious methods. She invented the most wicked 
stories about him, and in the early editions of 
"Science and Health" — the Comforter — she 
printed a chapter of such a slanderous nature 
that, had anyone done so toward her, she would 
have pulled him into court and demanded dam- 
ages to the full extent of the traffic. 

When Daniel H. Spofford and Edwin J. Arens 
followed Kennedy's example they came in for the 
same kind of treatment. When she wanted to 
secure the ground where the First Christian 
Science Church was to be built, she did not help 
the members pay off the $5,000 debt upon it, 
but, as she says, "by a circuitous and novel way, 
while spiritually inalienable," was "materially 
questionable," foreclosed on the property, and 
not only took it away from the members, but took 
away every vestige of liberty that "Christian 
Science" church members ever had or ever will 
have. 

Jesus Christ said: "If any man will sue thee 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 353 

at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have 
thy cloak also/' 

Mrs. Eddy haled her early students into court 
to collect from them exorbitant charges for the 
"gifts of the Holy Ghost." To cover up these 
offensive facts, she has left a by-law as her last 
word or interpretation of the quotation from the 
Master as given above. I wish my reader to 
compare the two and will leave him to determine 
whether the God with whom Jesus communed 
also inspired Mrs. Eddy's law, which says: "A 
member of the Mother Church shall not, under 
pardonable circumstances, sue his patient for 
recovery of payment for said member's practice/' 
Art. VIII, Sect. 22. 

The joker will be found in the words, "under 
pardonable circumstances. " In " Christian 
Science" there is a "joker" in everything, even 
in the word Christ. 

One of the attractive features to many in 
"Christian Science" is the claim that the healer 
can "demonstrate" a sick business into success. 
A person can call up a healer by telephone and 
ask for "absent success treatment." He will give 
the treatments and present his bill for the num- 
ber of treatments given. It would be interesting 
to know the workings of the healer's mind as he 
is putting the business "in tune with the infinite," 
or "affirming the Allness of God" and hedging 
it about with a protective wall to ward off the 
onslaughts of "malicious animal magnetism," 
and all other oppressions of "mortal mind." 



354 FACTS AND FABLES 

Now, the healer is the only divinely authorized 
dispenser of the divine mind, according to Mrs. 
Eddy. He does not ask about the fitness of the 
business, whether it deserves to succeed or should 
fail, because of its unfitness. The god of 
"Christian Science" has so much respect for busi- 
ness success that he lends a hand, on the one con- 
dition, namely, that bills for the treatment are 
promptly paid. 

Several days ago I listened to a lecture by one 
of the Lecture Board of the Mother Church. 
Two-thirds of his hour was devoted to the sub- 
ject of prayer. The vast audience was impressed 
with the belief that Mrs. Eddy taught her people 
to pray to God as Jesus prayed, and as his 
disciples prayed, when in truth she took all peti- 
tion out of prayer, and said that "it is a hin- 
drance" and that "God is not an auditory nerve." 
Her "Statement of Being," which she has plas- 
tered all over with the C. S. brand, which can 
only find shelter under cover of the night of 
ignorance or superstition, makes the prayer illogi- 
cal and of no effect. 

Now, I can understand how the psychological 
practitioner can take people's money for giving 
success treatments or lessons, since he exercises 
the grosser element "mortal mind." But how 
the "Scientist," who has received his training 
from within the Holy of Holies, directly from 
the "voice of God to this age," can make the 
divine mind work overtime to treat most any 
line of business to success for the one who pays 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 355 

the healer, and to the detriment of the one who 
is not onto the special privilege, I do not know, 
unless it is, as I surmise, that the "one mind" of 
"Christian Science" is Mrs. Eddy and her 
monumental greed. 

The New Testament record of Pentecost, 
which tells of the disciples speaking in strange 
tongues, has had many imitators since that day. 
Small groups of zealous people have sat in won- 
der and awe as some zealot has risen and jab- 
bered in incoherencies that none could understand. 
They believed that the Holy Spirit was speaking 
through the vocal organs of the speaker. There 
has been much amusement and contempt for 
those small groups of people. In no place has 
the following been large, nor made up of promi- 
nent people, therefore, the newspapers have had 
their fling at them without any harm to their 
own business. 

Now, such religionists are usually sincere, the 
leaders among them being self-sacrificing en- 
thusiasts. For them, I have the profoundest 
respect as compared with the new "tongue" of 
"Christian Science." It did not have its initia- 
tion in honesty and sincerity, but the Leader 
threw her lasso over the whole Pentecostal story 
and branded it C. S. She stood very much in 
need of a "new tongue" which only the elect 
could "understand," for her English was so 
faulty, and her attempts at metaphysics so puerile 
and ridiculous, that when it was cold she, her- 
self, could not understand it, nor account for the 



356 FACTS AND FABLES 

contradictions and absurdities, thus it was con- 
venient to have the "new tongue" joker up her 
sleeve to make her hand all trumps. 

When the "Scientists" are confronted with her 
inconsistencies and irrelevancies they immediate- 
ly take refuge behind the grim visage of their 
leader's joker. I asked an enthusiastic "Scien- 
tist" if the members of the Supreme Court of 
these United States in joint session could give 
the correct meaning of the by-law where it says 
that "The prayers in Christian Science Churches 
shall be offered for the congregations collectively 
and exclusively." He replied that they could 
not. They could not understand the "new 
tongue." 

You will find a joker grinning at you from 
behind every paragraph of Mrs. Eddy's writings. 
Waylay a "Scientist" and you will find one up 
his sleeve and others in pockets within easy 
reach. 

Let us see if Mrs. Eddy plays the game with- 
out marked cards. Some years ago she published 
the following statement : "A dispatch is given to 
me calling for an answer, am I the second 
Christ? Even the question shocks me. What 
I am is for God to declare in His infinite mercy. 
As it is, I claim nothing more than what I am, 
the discoverer and founder of Christian Science, 
and the blessing it has been to mankind which 
eternity unfolds. 

"My books and teachings maintain but one 
conclusion and statement of the Christ and the 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 357 

deifications of Mortals. There was, is, and ever 
can be but one God, one Jesus of Nazareth. 
Whoever, in any age, expresses most of the spirit 
of Truth and Love, the Principle of God's idea, 
has most of the spirit of Christ. 

"If Christian Scientists find in my writings, 
teachings, and example, a greater measure of 
spirit than in others, they can justly declare it. 
But to think or speak of me in any manner as a 
Christ is sacrilegious. Such a statement would 
not only be false, but the absolute antipode of 
Christian Science, and would savor more of 
heathenism than of my doctrines." 

This would appear to be a flat denial of any 
claims of her being the second coming of Christ. 
It would even seem to be a rebuke to any of her 
followers who would be guilty of such en- 
thusiasm. One has to be familiar with the secret 
markings on Mrs. Eddy's cards to stand any 
show in the game with her. She never plays 
fair, and the joker is always lurking around in 
some convenient place. 

The court that tries Mrs. Eddy must depend 
chiefly upon circumstantial evidence, for her 
open denials are of little or no value. Denial, 
you know, even of everything they know to be 
so, is the third corner-stone of her "Science." 

Since there is a joker in every paragraph of 
her utterances, we must take on suspicion the 
sentence, "Even the question shocks me." The 
answer to the question is not for the benefit of 
"Scientists," but for mortal minds outside her 



358 FACTS AND FABLES 

high walls. Prying "mortal mind" had driven 
her to answer the question. There is a dual 
answer in her reply; one for "mortal mind" — 
you and me — and one for those who understand 
the "new tongue." 

Since she has not been brought into court to 
explain what she means by "Even the question 
shocks me," we do not know what she meant by 
it; for she always reserved the right to give the 
final meaning to her "new tongue." 

In her class instruction she told her students 
that she had raised the dead. At least that was 
what her students sitting under her words un- 
derstood her to say. They went out with that 
impression, and she was willing that they should. 
It, however, took the court, in the suit she 
brought against Charles Stanley for unpaid 
tuitions, to bring out the joker, for she said, in 
answer to her class teachings — that she had 
raised the dead — "I have seen the dead in un- 
derstanding raised." 

With modesty Mrs. Eddy next says, in reply 
to the shocking question, "What I am is for God 
to declare in His infinite mercy. As it is I claim 
nothing more than what I am, the discoverer 
and founder of Christian Science." But since 
she lays emphasis in her book, "The Comforter," 
upon the importance of the "discovery" as 
greater than any "revelation" vouchsafed to any 
person that ever lived, Jesus included, the mod- 
esty is not genuine. 

Again the reply says: "There was and ever 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 359 

can be but one God, one Jesus of Nazareth." 
Now, the word seems to mortal mind to say 
"there was and ever can be but one Christ." It 
is but a playing with words, with marked cards, 
for in her "new tongue" she does not teach that 
Jesus was Christ. She teaches that Jesus had 
much of the spirit of Christ or "Truth," and 
that she had more than Jesus had. The grim 
visage of the joker is before you again. Note 
with care the following from the reply: "Who- 
ever in any age expresses the most of the spirit 
of Truth and Love, the Principle of God's ideas, 
has most of the spirit of Christ. 

"If Christian Scientists find in my writings, 
teachings and example a greater measure of 
spirit than in others, they can justly declare it." 

Those Christian Scientists, who have risen to 
the plane of "understanding" whereby they can 
interpret Mrs. Eddy's "new tongue," all "de- 
clare it," though it is done on the quiet so that 
"mortal mind" may not poke too much fun at it, 
or become exercised over the blasphemy. They 
"declare it" that Mrs. Eddy was the highest in- 
carnation of "Christ or Truth" and the ful- 
fillment of all prophecy, to little children in their 
Sunday schools, which are conducted in secret, 
for you or I cannot go there and learn what is 
being taught them. When the child has been 
held over the "Christian Science" purgatory, 
"mortal mind" — malicious animal magnetism — 
and when those teachers have had opportunity 
to instill into their plastic minds the worship of 



360 FACTS AND FABLES 

Mrs. Eddy under the false premise of Christ, 
the teachings of the Gospels that Jesus is the 
Christ will have forever lost its hold upon them; 
since to read such books as mine, even to read 
the Bible with Christian people, is an unpar- 
donable sin, and is fraught with dire retribu- 
tion. 

As for the rest of the denial in the reply, it 
must be taken in the light of Mrs. Eddy's gen- 
eral teachings and their effects upon her follow- 
ing. If while she lived thousands of people be- 
lieved that she was "demonstrating" over death, 
thus would not die; if artistic creations sent 
broadcast from the "mount" left such false im- 
pressions, mortals must judge, and I believe their 
judgment will be forgiven them. 

In 1 88 1 Foster Eddy wrote the following an- 
nouncement, which will bear repetition here: 
"Mother has never had time until the last two 
years to take the numerous gems which she has 
found in the deep mines of truth and polish 
them on Heaven's emery wheel, arrange them in 
order and give them a setting so that all could 
behold and see their perfect purity. Now here 
they all are in this new revised 'Science and 
Health.' " 

This even makes the joker blush. Mother had 
nothing to do with the polishing of "Science and 
Health" any more than she had to do with the 
artistic creations representing her, which led 
thousands of her followers to believe that physi- 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 361 

cal degeneration had met its "Waterloo" at her 
hands on the "Mount." 

Rev. Wiggin had been at work for six years 
polishing, as best he could, the mass of contra- 
dictory material in "Science and Health." He 
does not tell of "Heaven's emery wheel" to aid 
him, but says that it was a mighty hard task and 
that his chief concern "was to keep Mrs. Eddy 
from making herself ridiculous." He did not 
"polish" the announcement of his revision — the 
Eddys did that. 

In the following by-law the joker grins from 
every word and angle. It is, indeed, written in 
a new tongue, for no one else but Mrs. Eddy has 
ever insulted the most ordinary intelligence by 
such misuse of the English language: "Local 
Self-government. Article XXIII, Section I. 
The Mother Church of Christ, Scientist, shall 
assume no general official control of other 
churches, and it shall be controlled by none 
other." 

We quote from Mark Twain relative to the 
above by-law :* "It has a most pious and de- 
ceptive give-and-take air of perfect fairness, un- 
selfishness, magnanimity — almost godliness, in- 
deed. But it is all art. 

"In the by-laws Mrs. Eddy, speaking by the 
mouth of her other self, the Mother Church, 
proclaims that she will assume no official con- 
trol of other churches — branch churches. We 

i Christian Science, Mark Twain. 



362 FACTS AND FABLES 

examine the other by-laws, and they answer 
some important questions for us: 

i. "What is a branch church? It is a body of 
Christian Scientists, organized in the one and 
only permissible way — by a member, in good 
standing of the Mother Church, and who is also 
a pupil of one of Mrs. Eddy's accredited stu- 
dents — that is to say, one of her properties. No 
other can do it. There are other indispensible 
requisites — what are they? 

2. "The new church cannot enter upon its 
functions until its members have individually 
signed, and pledged allegiance to, a Creed fur- 
nished by Mrs. Eddy. 

3. "They are obliged to study her books and 
order their lives by them. And they must read 
no outside religious works. 

4. "They must sing the hymns and pray the 
prayers provided by her, and use no other in 
the services except by her permission. 

5. "They cannot have preachers and pastors. 
Her law. 

6. "In their church they must have two read- 
ers, a man and a woman. 

7. "They must read the services framed and 
"appointed by her. 

8. "She — not the branch church — appoints 
those readers. 

9. "She — not the branch church — dismisses 
them and fills the vacancies. 

10. "She can do this without consulting the 
branch church, and without explaining. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 363 

11. "The branch church can have a religious 
lecture from time to time by applying to Mrs. 
Eddy — there is no other way. 

12. "But the branch church cannot select the 
lecturer. Mrs. Eddy does it. 

13. "The branch church pays his fee. 

14. "The harnessing of all Christian Science 
wedding teams, members of the branch church, 
must be done by duly authorized and conse- 
crated Christian Science functionaries. Her fac- 
tory is the only one that makes and licenses 
them. 

15. "Nothing is said about christenings. It 
is inferable from this that a Christian Science 
child is born a Christian Scientist and requires 
no tinkering. 

16. "Nothing is said about funerals. It is in- 
ferable, then, that a branch church is privileged 
to do in that matter as it may choose. 

"To sum up : Are any important church func- 
tions absent from the list? I cannot call any to 
mind. Are there any lacking ones whose exer- 
cise could make the branch in any noticeable 
way independent of the Mother Church, even in 
any trifling degree? I think of none. If the 
named functions were abolished would there 
still be a church left? Would there be even the 
shadow of a church left? Would there be any- 
thing at all left, even the bare name? 

"Manifestly not. There isn't a single vital 
and essential church function of any kind — that 
is, not named in the list. And over every one 



364 FACTS AND FABLES 

of them the Mother Church has permanent and 
unchallengable control; upon every one of them 
Mrs. Eddy has set her irremovable grip. She 
holds in perpetuity autocratic and indisputable 
sovereignty and control over every branch 
church on the earth ; and yet says, in that sugary, 
naive, angel beguiling way of hers, that the 
Mother Church 'shall assume no official control 
of other churches of this denomination/ " 

I ask : Is there not a menace lurking in a cen- 
tralized church government like the Mother 
Church? I believe there is, in light of the fact 
that it is a great business institution; and its 
teachings are such that it cannot have fellowship 
with other religions, for its teachings are at 
enmity with the whole range of religions of this 
or any other day. It was designed to be ex- 
clusive; to separate itself from other religious 
bodies. It is grasping for money with a greed 
that is offensive. It is governed by the tyranny 
of the dead — a tyranny that has mischief in it 
because imposed by one who seemed to have no 
regard for the most primitive standard of hon- 
esty or fairness. 

While the absolute power of administration 
lies in the hands of the Board of Directors, they 
are governed by the Church Manual left by Mrs. 
Eddy, which cannot be changed. 

Mrs. Eddy wrote her son that she would have 
made him president of these United States had 
he not been so wanting in education. While the 
statement is either half insane, wholly vain or 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 365 

dishonest, it shows that her ambition for power 
was temporal as well as spiritual. When the 
Mother Church has a membership of a million it 
will be a political power to be reckoned with. It 
will then be worth scores of millions. Already 
the press in many places is careful not to offend, 
for it has come to learn that "Scientists" are not 
Americans first; are not for the world society 
first; are not for civilization first; but are for 
"Christian Science" first and entirely. You will 
see that they will not go to the front when the 
call comes, but they will stay at home and gather 
gold. 

"Christian Science" has much to say about 
Love. Mrs. Eddy used the word lavishly. It is 
a joker, and used officially is a sort of Judas kiss. 
The official lecturers have much to say about 
love, but love is honest and anyone who can look 
behind the scenes can see how misleading, how 
much of the Judas obtains in the "Christian 
Science" lectures. He has much to say about 
Jesus and prayer ; both are repudiated by "Chris- 
tian Science," but these are but borrowed jewels, 
put on for effect, while striking a bargain for 
the credulity of the audience. 

The following by-law has in it so much virus, 
so much mischief, that every democratic World 
Citizen should see its misshapen visage and 
know that it strikes at the very heart of liberty 
and conscience and action. It has in it only self- 
love and a hatred that is dangerous. 

It reads: "Article VIII, Section 15. Church 



366 FACTS AND FABLES 

Organization Ample. Members of this church 
shall not unite with organizations which impede 
their progress in Christian Science. God re- 
quires our whole heart, and He supplies within 
the wide channels of the Mother Church dutiful 
and sufficient occupations for all its members." 

It is bad enough to forbid associations with 
people of other beliefs, for from associations 
with one's fellows the larger humanity expresses 
itself. But to say in the words of the by-law 
that "God requires our whole heart, and He sup- 
plies within the wide channels of the Mother 
Church dutiful and sufficient occupation for all 
its members," is to imply that God has no other 
concerns than the welfare of the Christian 
Science Church. This is not a break from Mrs. 
Eddy's teachings, but is in full accord with her 
system. "Christian Science" is always true to 
the character that conceived it. 

Mrs. Eddy has been dead about ten months 
at the time of this writing. I find that the 
Mother Church directors have no intention to 
be any more honest than their "Leader" was. 
The same falsehood about her fall and miracu- 
lous healing is told by the lecturers today as it 
was when Mrs. Eddy saw to it that their pay 
was withdrawn if they did not tell it. 

If one wishes to test the purpose and honesty 
of the Mother Church management, all he needs 
to do is to make a careful comparison between 
the McClure History of Mrs. Eddy and the Sibyl 
Wilbur History, which is authorized by the 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 367 

Board of Directors, since it sells at war prices 
in the "Christian Science ,, salesrooms, where 
nothing but authorized "Christian Science" lit- 
erature is sold. It has been brought up to date 
since Mrs. Eddy's decease. 

Mrs. Eddy's own autobiography — Retrospec- 
tion and Introspection — is a most puerile bit of 
history. It is true to her character, though not 
true to facts. She was such a bungling writer, 
so illogical in her statements, that she could not 
invent a falsehood without some former state- 
ment or record of her own disproving it. 

The larger history of Mrs. Eddy — by Sibyl 
Wilbur — is an interesting study in evasions of 
offensive facts, in new inventions of the mar- 
vels and spiritual uniqueness of the life of the 
"Leader." The book opens with a joker grin- 
ning at you in the first line of the introduction — 
"No mystery today surrounds the life story of 
Mary Baker Eddy." The crowning effort of the 
whole volume is to surround this life with a 
sacred mystery. Space will not permit of an 
extensive examination into the methods em- 
ployed to effect this end. A few illustrations 
must suffice. The introduction says: "All state- 
ments of facts made in this narrative are 
founded on reliable evidence." The author — or 
it would probably be more correct to say authors 
— have been so busy training colored lights upon 
the figure before the audience that the "evi- 
dence" spoken of has been quite overlooked, for 
I cannot find it. This, however, is true "Chris- 



368 FACTS AND FABLES 

tian Science" method. It would indicate that 
the author, or one or more of them, had spent 
much time at Concord, well up on the Mount. 

As I have shown elsewhere in this work, Mrs. 
Eddy has made a studied effort to make a 
parallel between her life and the life of Jesus 
Christ. Had history held up to the world a 
higher character and a greater figure she would 
have drawn the parallel with it. 

She went back into the Old Testament and 
found a child — Samuel — who had at very tender 
years received unique recognition of God. Here 
laid her opportunity and she made use of it. As 
luck was with her in many things, she was given 
the name Mary. To the "Christian Scientists" 
today she is The Mary. There is another Mary, 
which sustains her no loss. 

Circumstances did not afford Mrs. Eddy or 
her historians the opportunity of surrounding 
her birth with special uniqueness, since she was 
born of two very plain parents like the most of 
us. This was inconvenient, and poor Mark 
Baker comes in for some hard rubs by the his- 
torians of the latter history. The historians have 
made the most of the crude and prosaic material 
surrounding the infancy and early childhood. 
They get in a few slides that cast lights not 
often seen in these materialistic days. 

There was a long jump between the birth of 
Jesus and the flight into Egypt, and His appear- 
ance in the Temple at the age of twelve. Here 
was Mrs. Eddy's first real opportunity when she 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 369 

came to write her own history. She also could 
have argued with the doctors in the Temple at 
the age of twelve. Who could deny her this? 
She therefore throws in a real oasis for our re- 
freshing. She says on page 12 (twelfth thou- 
sand), Retrospection and Introspection: 

"At the age of twelve I was admitted to the 
Congregational (Trinitarian) Church. In con- 
nection with this event some circumstances are 
noteworthy." She then tells of being "stricken 
with fever" as the result of too much concern 
over "the doctrine of Unconditional Election, or 
Predestination. The family doctor was sum- 
moned, but I prayed, and a soft glow of in- 
effable joy came over me, the fever was gone, 
and I arose and dressed myself, in a normal con- 
dition of health. The physician marveled; and 
the horrible decree of predestination forever lost 
its power over me." 

Jesus had no such miracle to His credit at the 
age of twelve. We therefore find Mary a stride 
ahead in the parallel. We must not lose sight of 
the fact that Mary had a sort of corner on tan- 
trums and fits, which she often put on and off as 
easily as she changed her dresses. Dr. Ladd, 
the family physician, diagnosed Mary's attacks 
as "hysteria mingled with bad temper." 

To return to the point in hand: Mrs. Eddy 
further says: "When the meeting was held for 
the examination of candidates for membership, 
I was of course present. The pastor was an old 
school expounder of the strictest Presbyterian 



370 FACTS AND FABLES 

doctrines. ... I was ready for his doleful ques- 
tions, which I answered without a tremor, de- 
claring that never could I unite with the church 
if assent to this doctrine was essential thereto. 

"When pressed as to where I had experienced 
a change of heart, I replied that I could only 
answer him in the words of the Psalmist: 
'Search me, O God, and know my heart ; try me, 
and know my thoughts; and see if there be any 
wicked way in me, and lead me in the way ever- 
lasting/ 

"This was so earnestly said that even the old- 
est church members wept. After the meeting 
was over they came and kissed me. To the 
astonishment of many, the good clergyman's 
heart also melted, and he received me into their 
communion, and my protest along with me. My 
connection with this religious body was retained 
till I founded a church of my own." 

In the McClure history the first chapters 
showed how awkward loose romancing may be- 
come. The church records show that Mary 
Baker Eddy was seventeen years old when she 
joined the Tilton Congregational Church on 
profession. The Baker family did not move to 
Tilton until Mary was fifteen years old. This 
was, indeed, an awkward position for one to be 
in who claimed to be superior to Jesus Christ. 
It was, of course, evil of McClures to publish 
the facts. This part of the McClure history was 
in the hands of Mrs. Eddy's historians for their 
answer. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 371 

I have less respect for her historians in at- 
tempting to whitewash the discrepencies with 
more falsehoods, than for the fellow who came 
to my door offering apples for sale. I looked 
at the little measure under his arm and with a 
little exhibition of merriment asked, "About 
how many of those pecks does it take to make 
a bushel ?" He, being an Irishman, saw the 
point and good naturedly replied, "I guess it 
would take about six to make a bushel." We had 
a good laugh over it and I bought some apples, 
six pecks to the bushel. 

The Sibyl Wilbur history says: "It is true 
that Mary Baker made a religious profession at 
this time. She was examined at the age of 
twelve by the pastor, who eagerly put to her the 
usual doleful questions, declaring that he must 
be assured that she had been truly regenerated. 
With the eyes of the church members upon her 
she answered without a tremor: 'I can only say 
in the words of the Psalmist : Search me, O God, 
and know my heart/ etc." 

Mrs. Eddy's autobiography says: "At the age 
of twelve I was admitted to the Congregational 
(Trinitarian) Church. To the astonishment of 
many, the good clergyman's heart melted, and 
he received me into their communion and my 
protest along with me." 

Now, this is the character of the Wilbur his- 
tory throughout its four hundred pages. Mrs. 
Eddy did not write it. She did not have its 
command of English. It was written in 1907, 



372 FACTS AND FABLES 

three years before Mrs. Eddy's death. It is true 
to the Eddy character of vivid romancing, 
evasions and inventions, indicating Mrs. Eddy's 
"omnipresence." Perhaps this is a "Demonstra- 
tion" of the "omnipresence" of which she 
boasted. Her historians pitched their literary 
camp well up toward the summit of the Mount 
to be in easy reach for the Mother to step down 
from her communings and lend her inspirations. 

This late history has done some vivid ro- 
mancing about the Quimby controversy. It has 
it that Mrs. Eddy gave instructions to Quimby; 
though Mrs. Eddy at the time Quimby lived and 
for several years later published everywhere she 
went that Quimby healed her, and taught her his 
system of healing. It was her stock in trade. 
Now they claim that "She began to systematize 
her ideas and to write out a new manuscript, not 
entirely different from those she had prepared 
for Quimby." 

They do not attempt to answer the affidavits 
made by her earliest students, who state that 
they paid for Quimby manuscripts and not for 
manuscripts claimed to be Mrs. Eddy's. If she 
wrote the manuscript for Quimby she got her 
financial start under false pretenses, for her 
goods were never represented as her own. It 
resolves itself to this: Mrs. Eddy had little re- 
gard for truth, and the farther removed from 
the incident the bolder the romancing becomes. 
The treatment of the Quimby question in the 
Wilbur history is the boldest piece of romancing 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 373 

to be found in any biography. There is no effort 
to produce any other kind of evidence than 
"Mrs. Eddy has said." 

The history gives a conversation between Mrs. 
Eddy and Quimby in which "Quimby sat 
abashed" and humbly said, "I see what you 
mean — that Christ has come into the world 
again— but in that case I must be John and you 
Jesus." This reminds us to turn back to page 
34 of the same romance and we find another con- 
versation that might have occurred between 
Mary and the Rev. Enoch Corser, pastor of the 
church at Tilton. Mary was about fifteen years 
old. The narrative pictures the venerable pastor 
drinking at the fount of her spiritual knowledge. 
It says: "As she looked up at her pastor, her 
great blue eyes poured sunshine upon him and 
she smiled with such radiance that he was 
struck dumb in the midst of his defense of 
Hades." Helplessly he is said to have said: 
" 'Mary, your poetry goes beyond my theology. 
Why should I preach to you?' He is further said 
to have said : " 'She has some great future — 
mark that. She is an intellectual and spiritual 
genius.' " 

How inconvenient it was that Mark Baker, 
Mary's father, did not die some months before 
her birth so that the coast would have been clear 
for some romancing about her birth. 

The Wilbur history say : 

"While Mary was attending the Academy an 
incident occurred which is still related by old 



374 FACTS AND FABLES 

residents of Tilton. A lunatic escaped from the 
asylum at Concord, invaded the school yard, 
brandishing a club and terrifying the children, 
who ran shrieking into the house. Mary Baker 
advanced toward him and the children, peering 
through the windows, saw him wield the club 
above her head. Their blood tingled with hor- 
ror, for they expected to see her struck down 
before their eyes. Not so. She walked straight 
up to the man and took his disengaged hand. 
The club descended harmlessly to his side. At 
her request he walked with her to the gate and 
so, docilely, away. On the following Sunday 
he reappeared and quietly entered the church. 
He walked to the Baker pew and stood beside 
Mary during the hymn singing. Afterwards he 
allowed himself to be taken in charge without 
resistance." 

That was a bungling piece of business. Why 
did not the historians have Mary cure the poor 
fellow? They could have done it just as well as 
not. They invented her attendance at the Acad- 
emy; why could they not have completed the 
cure? I don't think it is fair, either, to the 
reader or the lunatic. 

The Wilbur history leaves the impression that 
Mary was, indeed, an "intellectual genius." The 
McClure tells another story with witnesses to 
support it. It says: "Sarah Jane Bodwell, a 
daughter of the Congregational minister at San- 
borton Square, kept the school then and, finding 
Mary very backward in- her studies, in spite of 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 375 

her age and precociousness, she placed her in a 
class with small children. Mary seemed indiffer- 
ent about getting into a more advanced class and 
did not apply herself. Her old schoolmates say 
that she was indolent and spent her time lolling 
in her seat or scribbling on her slate, and ap- 
parently was incapable of concentrated or con- 
tinuous thought. 

" 'I remember Mary Baker very well/ said 
one of her classmates now living in Tilton. 'She 
began to come to district school in the early sum- 
mer of 1836. I recollect her very distinctly be- 
cause she sat just in front of me, and because 
she was such a big girl to be in our class. I was 
only nine, but I helped her with her arithmetic 
when she needed help. We studied Smith's 
Grammar and ciphered by ourselves in Adams' 
New Arithmetic, and when she left school in 
three or four weeks we had both reached long 
division. She left on account of sickness. 

" 'She loved to impress us with fine stories 
about herself and her family. The school girls 
did not like her, and they made fun of her as 
school girls will. I knew her for a long time 
afterward, as we grew up in the same village, 
but I can't say that Mary changed much with 
her years.' " 

Luck was with Mrs. Eddy many times. 'The 
divine mind" that guided her and led her toward 
her "great discovery," "demonstration" and 
parallel with Jesus Christ, was, nevertheless, off 
his job part of the time. She missed being im- 



376 FACTS AND FABLES 

maculately conceived. She missed the chance 
of having an immaculate conception of her own, 
since her son was born too early in the game. 
Perhaps that is why she gave him away. Being 
the offspring of "legalized lust," he was not 
worth while. 

Another awkward circumstance was that she 
had her "fall" on Thursday instead of "her 
crucifixion" on Friday. This occurred, you re- 
member, February I, 1866, not over two weeks 
after Quimby's death. In the "divine plan" — 
of her own making — a Christ must be crucified 
for the great error of the world, "mesmerism" 
— "belief in matter and hypnotism." 

The late C. S. version about Quimby is that 
he was the serpent that beguiled Mrs. Eddy, in- 
stead of what she said in her printed article in 
the Portland Courier in his defense, at the time 
she was being treated by him: "P. P. Quimby 
stands upon the plane of wisdom with his truth. 
Christ healed the sick, but not by jugglery or 
with drugs. As the former speaks as never man 
before spake, and heals as never man healed 
since Christ, is he not identified with truth ? And 
is not this the Christ that is in him?" 

Before approaching the year 1862, when Mrs. 
Eddy (then Mrs. Patterson) first met Quimby, 
the Wilbur history has given her the distinction 
of a very high degree of learning, "a special 
writer of ability," and "her social success was 
easy." But more important for us to know than 
this was that she had been pondering a world 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 377 

philosophy ever since her infancy, when she 
struck an attitude with an ancestral sword that 
had been unsheathed six hundred years ago in 
defense of religious liberty in the highlands of 
Scotland. The infant astonished the grand- 
mother with a dramatic sweep of the sword 
(tugs at it), declaring: "But I should not have 
run away. And I should have worshipped God 
according to my own conscience. And they 
could have taken their swords and killed me." 
"And there in the twilight of the garret the 
child fell to wondering, doubtless making then 
and there her covenant." 

Perhaps it was the weight of this philosophy 
and her "intellectual genius" that produced an 
invalidism that necessitated a special cradle for 
her to be rocked in when she was forty years old. 
Her philosophy received a backset when she met 
Satan (Quimby) and was tempted of him for a 
period of four years. (How inconvenient that 
it was not forty days.) 

I wish here to quote several paragraphs from 
the Wilbur history: "She met the first real ob- 
stacles to her faith in the weird doctrine of 
Phineas Quimby. How she strove to harmonize 
his strange theories with her faith; how she 
labored to evolve a philosophy from his in- 
coherencies has been related. She had come 
to a crisis when her faith could no longer endure 
the association with ideas so incongruous. Her 
angel fought with the intruder which, veiled in 
obscurities, could not be named or recognized. 



378 FACTS AND FABLES 

The battle was terrific and it was prolonged. It 
had begun in 1862 and was still going on when 
the year 1866 dawned. The woman who was to 
promulgate a new understanding of Christianity, 
which would shake the world's thought to the 
center, was undergoing the anguish, alarm and 
terror of a cataclysmic upheaval which she con- 
cealed from all the world and bore alone. 

"She has written of this period that the 
product of her own earlier thought and medita- 
tion had been vitiated with animal magnetism 
and human will-power, the nature of which she 
was as ignorant of as Eve of sin before taught 
by the serpent. What serpent was to teach Mary 
Baker the nature of magnetism? That lesson 
was still afar off. The unveiling of the angel's 
face, the shining visage of Truth in her heart, 
was to precede the unveiled vision of error by 
years sufficient for her to grow to the fighting 
stature in the consciousness of its power. 

"But now she was all but dominated by the 
power of the darker error she has named mes- 
merism or magnetism, and the mental state was 
worse than the disease that formerly tortured 
her body. While held in this state she still 
ascribed her cure to Quimby. His thought, his 
personality, was still obtruding itself between 
her and God. He was squarely in the light. 
Her religious peace, her faith, her spiritual 
being was threatened. Her anguish was in- 
tolerable, and to no one could she turn for coun- 
sel to obtain relief. 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 379 

"Out of this smothered torment, in which she 
sounded a deeper hell than Calvinists had ever 
imagined, she was lifted suddenly by a physical 
shock which set her free for her great discovery 
and revelation. This shock was caused by an 
accident which carried her to death's door and 
from which she recovered in what seems a 
miraculous manner on the third day following. 

"This accident has been called, with various 
shades of sentiment, the 'fair in Lynn. To many 
thousands that fall with its subsequent uplifting 
has been the fall of their own torment, mental 
and physical, and the uplifting of their lives 
with Mary Baker Eddy's." 1 

This is the "fall" that all the "Christian 
Science' ' lecturers must tell about. Mrs. Eddy 
wrote into the church manual a by-law making 
the story obligatory. The particular story was 
not designated, but she saw to it that it was 
always told; so now, that she is not on hand to 
watch it, the church clerk sees to it. I have 
heard it told by three lecturers in the last six 
months. 

There are some sentences in the paragraph 
quoted above that are specially significant. Let 
us apply the "key" to them and see what C. S. 
treasures may be discovered. Since the his- 
torians' tent was pitched high up on the mount, 
we need not be surprised to find something of 
the vernacular of the Mount (the new tongue) 
in their pages. 

i Life of Mary Baker Eddy, Chapter X. 



380 FACTS AND FABLES 

Quoting again the words above, when it says: 
"What serpent was to teach Mary Baker the 
nature of magnetism? That lesson was still far 
off. The unveiling of the angel's face, the shitt- 
ing visage of Truth in her heart, was to precede 
the unveiled vision of error by years sufficient 
for her to grow to the fighting stature in the con- 
sciousness of its power." 

That sentence was no doubt written im- 
mediately after Mother had tripped down from 
the summit to illuminate her historians. It may 
be that they overheard conversations up there 
and thus acquired the "new tongue." 

The "serpent that was to teach Mary Baker 
the nature of Magnetism," which "lesson was 
still far off," was Richard Kennedy. "The un- 
veiling of the angel's face, the shining visage of 
Truth in her heart," was the "revelation," the 
"great discovery," her resurrection on the third 
day after her "fall." 

Regarding Christ's temptation, Matthew says: 
"Then the devil leaveth Him, and behold, angels 
came and ministered unto Him." Can't we see 
why the "angel's face" had to come to help out 
the parallel? 

Quoting again, we apply the "key": "While 
held in this state she still ascribed her cure to 
Ouimby. His thought, his personality, was still 
obtruding itself between her and God." This 
means that Quimby's doctrine was the devil, the 
tempter; and "her angel fought with the in- 
truder." 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 381 

So great was this material sin that "the voice 
of God to this age" had to be crucified to attone 
for it ("demonstrate over it"). So Mrs. Eddy 
slipped on the icy walk — and, as she said in a 
letter a few days after the accident, "came to con- 
sciousness amid a storm of vapors from cologne, 
chloroform, ether, etc." (Rather strange drugs 
for resuscitation.) But since in her reasoning 
the only power drugs have lies in the belief con- 
cerning them, chloroform and ether would do 
just as well as any other to resuscitate an uncon- 
scious person if the friends about her believed so. 

I caution the reader to exercise self-control as 
we lift the lid off the C. S. treasure chest in the 
next sentence, for even excessive delights some- 
times prove fatal. I heard of a man dropping 
dead while sitting at a game of poker on the dis- 
covery that he held five aces. 

"This accident has been called with various 
shades of sentiment the 'fair in Lynn. To many 
that fall with its subsequent uplifting has been 
the fall of their own torment, mental and physi- 
cal, and the uplifting of their lives with Mary 
Baker Eddy's." 

I chide myself for the levity above, for it is a 
matter of serious concern where tens of thou- 
sands of people in this enlightened age have 
shoved Jesus Christ aside, who said: "And I, if 
I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men 
unto me" — and have made a new Christ of Mrs. 
Eddy, as the sentence says — "and the uplifting 
of their lives with Mary Baker Eddy's." Open 



382 FACTS AND FABLES 

your eyes and look about you and you will be- 
hold the worship of Mrs. Eddy in the place of 
Jesus of Nazareth. Let us follow this studied 
parallel, which finally gives the Judas kiss and 
barters away the Master for silver and gold. 

The accident which Dr. Cushing, under affi- 
davit, said was not serious, took place early 
Thursday evening. He says : "I found her very 
nervous, partially unconscious, semi-hysterical, 
complaining by word and action of severe pain 
in the back of the head and neck." The accident 
occurred the evening of the first, and his final 
visit on that occasion was the thirteenth. 

The Wilbur romance finds another parallel to 
the crucifixion of Jesus. In the Christian 
Science Journal, June, 1887, Mrs. Eddy said 
concerning her "miraculous" healing: "Ador- 
ingly I discerned the principle of His Holy 
heroism and Christian example on the cross 
when He refused to drink the vinegar and the 
gall, a preparation of poppy and aconite, to allay 
the tortures of crucifixion." 

The romance says in connection with this: 
"She was not responsible for the calling of the 
physician and only took his medicine when she 
was roused into semi-consciousness to have it 
administered, of which she has no recollection. 
After the doctor's departure on Friday, however, 
she refused to take the medicine he had left, and 
as she expressed it, lifted her heart to God. On 
the third day, which was Sunday, she sent those 
who were in the room away and, taking her 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 383 

Bible, opened it. Her eyes fell upon the account 
of the healing of the palsied man by Jesus. 

"She could not utter words of prayer; her 
spirit realized. . . . God said to her, 'Daughter, 
arise.' " 

According to this authorized romance, the ex- 
perience was no half-way affair, for it uses some 
immoderate language, namely, "She knew God 
face to face; she 'touched and handled things 
unseen/ A spiritual experience so deep was 
granted her that she realized eternity in a 
moment, infinitude in limitation." It is no small 
thing to "realize eternity in a moment," and hold 
"infinitude in limitation" in the hollow of your 
hand. Now, I will admit that the tongue in this 
last sentence quoted is too tangled for me, 

Maintaining the parallel with the resurrection 
of Jesus, the romance gives us a scene like the 
one where Jesus appeared to His friends in the 
upper chamber. It says: "Mrs. Patterson arose 
from her bed, dressed and walked into the par- 
lor, where a clergyman and a few friends had 
gathered, thinking it might be for the last words 
on earth with the sufferer who, they believed, 
was dying. They arose in consternation at her 
appearance, almost believing they beheld an ap- 
parition. She quietly reassured them and ex- 
plained the manner of her recovery, calling upon 
them to witness it. They were the first doubters. 
They were there on the spot; they had with- 
drawn but a short time since from what they 
supposed was her deathbed. She stood before 



384 FACTS AND FABLES 

them fully restored to health. They shook their 
heads in amazed confusion. Although the clergy- 
man and his wife rejoiced with her, they could 
not comprehend her statements. ,, 

Among "Christian Scientists" the story is told 
that Mrs. Eddy had her resurrection from the 
near-death on the third day. The lecturers sent 
out by the Mother Church tell it that she arose 
on the third day. Mrs. Eddy herself started the 
story. The Wilbur romance — authorized and 
brought up to date since Mrs. Eddy's death — 
says: "After the doctor's departure on Friday, 
however, she refused to take the medicine he had 
left, and as she had expressed it, lifted her heart 
to God. On the third day, which was Sunday, 
she sent those who were in her room away and, 
taking her Bible, opened it." Now, this would 
appear to the careless reader to mean that she 
rose on the third day, as Mrs. Eddy has always 
said. It brings forward Friday and Sunday 
the days on which Christ was crucified and arose 
from the grave. 

According to the Lynn Reporter of Saturday 
morning, February 3, 1866, it was on Thursday 
evening when Mrs. Eddy slipped on the ice. Dr. 
Cushing's notes made at the time says: "Early 
in the evening of February 1st." This would 
bring her "resurrection" on Saturday and cut 
Friday and Sunday out of the story entirely. 
"Christian Scientists" won't stand for that, and 
apparently the C. S. Powers at Boston are of the 
same mind, or they would hardly have made her 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 385 

"resurrection" occur on Sunday. Mrs. Eddy 
alone said that it occurred "on the third day." 
Her historians have made use of the much used 
phrase "on the third day," and in the same para- 
graph say that it took place on Sunday, which 
would be the fourth day. 

I have no doubt but that, to the "Scientists" 
—not mathematicians, astronomers or other 
"mortal minds" — the historians' account fully 
agrees with Mrs. Eddy's, so that all have told 
the truth; and that if we only understood the 
"New tongue" we would clearly see that Sunday 
is the third day after Thursday; and we would 
also be lifted to the "understanding" of how 
Friday came in, bringing both crucifixions on 
the same day — and on two different days. 

In the words of Mrs. Eddy : "Indeed, this may 
be set down as one of the things hard to be un- 
derstood, such as the Apostle Peter declared 
were taught by his fellow Apostle Paul, 'Which 
they that are unlearned and unstable wrest . . . 
unto their own destruction.' " 

I have quoted this as a caution to my "mortal" 
readers. Mrs. Eddy said in a letter to her s&n: 
"The world, the flesh and evil I am at war with." 
The "third day" puzzle may be a trap set for you 
that you may "wrest unto your own destruc- 
tion." 

It may be like the trap set by one of the mean- 
est men I ever heard of. He had it in for his 
neighbor's coon. Knowing the habit of coons, 
he put a marble into a bottle — the size of the 



386 FACTS AND FABLES 

marble was almost as large as the neck of the 
bottle — and gave the bottle to the coon one 
morning when the family left home for the day. 
The coon could easily reach the marble and 
grasp it in its hand, but could not bring marble 
and hand through the neck of the bottle at the 
same time. Not having been warned about 
"wresting unto their own destruction," it per- 
sisted with the problem throughout the whole 
day — probably into the small hours of the morn- 
ing, no one knows — for next morning it was 
found lying dead, still grasping the marble. 

I do not believe that Mrs. Eddy was ever 
frank and honest, like most every other person 
you meet or know anything of. I cannot believe 
that the hierarchy at the head of her church are 
much superior to her, for I cannot understand 
how an honest American citizen can carry out 
the autocracy established by Mrs. Eddy, as laid 
down in the Church Manual, can continue to use 
the borrowed garments from Christian teach- 
ings to hide the mischief of her philosophy; can 
repeat in every lecture the falsehood about the 
"fall in Lynn"; can enforce the by-laws de- 
signed to crush freedom of speech and con- 
science; can wield the power of excommunica- 
tion and ostracism over any member who elects 
to speak as his conscience demands; can support 
the partisanship and hatred so evident in the by- 
law that forbids members to affiliate with other 
religious organizations ; can enforce the by-law 
that says that Christian Science Churches shall 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 387 

not assemble in convention; and forbids open 
discussion of Christian Science doctrine; can 
conduct Sunday schools in secret; can continue 
to call "Christian Science" the Holy Spirit that 
shall lead all men into truth, and charge an ex- 
orbitant price for imparting it to others, and 
deny it to all who are willing to pay, dispensing 
it to those only who give evidence of submission 
and slavery; can openly and effectively continue 
the spread of the maze of falsehoods invented by 
Mrs. Eddy; and steal away the reasoning facul- 
ties of tens of thousands of credulous people, 
leading them into a superstitious worship of a 
person in character beneath the meanest among 
them; unless it be that Christian Science is in 
the hands of a coterie of knaves who are willing 
to exploit a people under the guise of religion, or 
are themselves fanatics whose intellectual suicide 
has been quite complete. 

Speaking frankly and openly, I cannot believe 
that the powers at Boston are religious fanatics, 
or are sincere as are many or most of the rank 
and file outside the army of healers. I believe 
they are willing to exploit people in the name of 
religion as their "Leader," the "Christian 
Science" example, did. She seemed willing to 
use any measure, any method to gain her end, 
power and wealth, and I believe only like char- 
acters will be elected by members of the Board 
of Directors to fill vacancies in that board of 
control. 

It is an offense to American citizenship that a 



388 FACTS AND FABLES 

church government is so organized that with a 
membership of sixty thousand the membership 
has no voice in the election of a member of the 
Board of Directors — the absolute power over all 
"Christian Science" members and churches. 
Even benighted China is beginning to shake off 
the fetters of absolute dynastic rule and demand 
freedom of speech and representation in gov- 
ernment. 

Here in these United States, in the midst of 
the world's example of democracy and freedom 
of speech, has grown unhampered a religious 
autocracy offending every principle of American 
citizenship. 

Will the Christian Science Church do as the 
Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, 
Congregational, Disciples and scores of other 
Christian denominations have done, namely, be 
unpartisan in matters of state, or will it do as 
the Mormon Church has done, enter politics to 
gain its desired ends? Anyone who will look 
closely into the history and method of Mrs. 
Eddy, the exclusiveness which she has designed 
for her followers, the high walls she has built 
about them, and the hinderance to their idealism 
imposed by all who are not "Christian Scientists" 
through the mischievous doctrine of "mortal 
mind and malicious animal magnetism," will 
readily see that unless the power of the Church 
Manual and the Mother Church is broken up, 
that we will have in our midst another church 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 389 

working as a unit to gain power through politi- 
cal representation. 

It should be apparent to anyone acquainted 
with the facts that if the Board of Directors is 
to carry out the Eddy policies, that wherever the 
"Scientists" are in sufficient power that present 
instructions in our public schools will undergo 
radical changes. Mrs. Eddy has taught that all 
history (except the history made by herself and 
her help) should be expunged. She teaches that 
all the sciences are error, and error is evil, and 
evil is mortal mind, the devil, hindering the ad- 
vance of "Christian Science." Preaching the 
Gospel in "Christian Science" is not ministering 
to the widow and the orphan in their needs, but 
is simply making "Christian Scientists" of them. 
It does not pronounce a blessing upon the many 
organizations working for the good of humanity, 
but gathers its pharisaical skirts about it and 
says that "prayers in Christian Science churches 
shall be offered for the congregations collectively 
and exclusively." It takes the Golden Rule out 
of the Lord's prayer, and forbids the Mother 
Church to make donations. It is self-seeking, 
and makes a devil of all outside the "understand- 
ing" of the "new tongue." 

Since one of the corner-stones of Mrs. Eddy's 
"Truth" is pay in advance and charge all the 
traffic will bear; since the Mother Church, under 
Mrs. Eddy's example and tuition, has such pro- 
found respect for gold, is it an exhibition of 
overconcern to believe that it will enter politics 



390 FACTS AND FABLES 

when its constituency becomes large enough to 
be effective in any community ? I think not, and 
am willing to hazard this as a prophecy and a 
warning. 

If they believe, as one "Scientist" said to me, 
that the intelligence of the Supreme Court of 
the United States would be of no avail in in- 
terpreting the meaning of the words of the by- 
law: "Prayers in the Christian Science churches 
shall be offered for the congregations collectively 
and exclusively," unless the jurors understood 
the "new tongue." Is it not logical to expect 
that they would place the "elect" in political 
power if they could? 

Since the medical profession is, in Mrs. Eddy's 
teachings, the source of diseases; since bac- 
teriological laboratories are originating new 
diseases with which to inflict the world, as she 
says, is it an undue speculation to believe that 
the "Scientists" will eschew the political power 
that would enable them to legislate all these 
"dismal cells, slaughter houses of infamy," out 
of existence? These are only logical con- 
clusions if the "Scientists" follow Mrs. Eddy as 
she has pointed the way. 

She claimed infallibility for her teachings and 
forbid any additions or subtractions. There can 
be no reform instituted in "Christian Science" so 
long as the Mother Church is in control. Indi- 
vidual "Scientists" cannot contribute from their 
experiences or reasoning. They are in the same 
position as the Chinese have been for centuries, 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 391 

in that they are worshipers of the dead, and 
look with enmity upon any criticism of the works 
of Mrs. Eddy. The Chinese have been wor- 
shipers of their ancestors, believing that what 
they did should be sufficient for themselves. 
Thus progress has been retarded. At last west- 
ern civilization has reached them in a small de- 
gree, and the great sleeper is awakening. 

Mrs. Eddy made a stride backward thousands 
of years when she pretended to furnish in a 
book all that the race needed for all time to 
come. No other religious propagandist has dis- 
played equal anarchy and bigotry by denouncing 
all the works of men as evil. No other book of 
equal size ever written contains so much that 
offends intelligence, and contradicts facts, as 
does the book that the "Scientists" consider "the 
chief corner-stone ,, of the Scriptures. 

So successfully has the book been advertised 
that it has the reputation among millions of 
being a work of profound and finished philos- 
ophy. Hundreds of thousands of people are to- 
day approaching it with the belief that it is pro- 
found in its depth. Such have been the stories 
circulated about it from Boston. Mrs. Eddy has 
been held up before the public as a great author 
and profound thinker. This is a false reputa- 
tion. 

It reminds me of a swimming hole in an 
adjacent neighborhood when I was a boy. It 
had a reputation for being deep, or so a group 
of boys understood. The first warm spring day 



392 FACTS AND FABLES 

the boys went to the hole for a swim. None of 
them had ever been there before, but all took it 
for granted it was deep. There had been a rain 
the night before, which left the water clouded 
so that the bottom could not be seen or the depth 
observed. There was a race among the boys for 
the first plunge. The first boy undressed, dove 
into the water from a high bank without ques- 
tioning its depth, with the result that his head 
struck the hard bottom, for the hole was only 
about three feet deep. He was rendered uncon- 
scious by the shock and was pulled out in the 
nick of time by his comrades. So severe was 
the shock that ever afterwards he carried a stiff 
neck, his head awry. 

When I meet a "Scientist" who talks to me 
about a "New tongue" that is above your and 
my reason and intelligence, and assumes the 
lofty air of "the elect," I am reminded of the 
boy with the wry neck who plunged into the pool 
on its false reputation. Many a "Scientist" has 
suicided intellectually by plunging into the shal- 
low, clouded surface of the book "Science and 
Health" on the reputation of its depth and 
scholarship. They, too, carry a stiff neck the 
rest of their days. All the progress of the race, 
all the science and philosophies to date are to the 
"scientists" who pattern after Mrs. Eddy noth- 
ing more than delusions of evil thinking "mortal 
minds." 

"Christian Science" has nothing in common 
with other religious people. It cannot unite with 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 393 

the hundred or more of Christian denominations 
upon any issue. Mrs. Eddy wished to be at 
enmity with the many millions who march under 
the standard of Christ. Like a cancer she started 
the virus of her rebellion against the Christian 
world, ambitious to destroy all the other doc- 
trines of men, and all other interpretations of the 
Scriptures; and permeate the whole body with 
the tentacles of her doctrine of "nothingness of 
matter/' "mortal mind/' "malicious animal mag- 
netism/' and her own worship. 

So tenacious was this purpose, this ambition, 
that she left a church government that is an 
offense to every sense of freedom, every demo- 
cratic principle; and forever made impossible 
advancement and reform; and left her people at 
enmity with every system of knowledge and be- 
lief outside the doctrines of her book. She did 
not leave as an inspiration "the world for 
Christ"; she left the impulse, the world for 
"Christian Science," which being translated 
means the world for Mrs. Eddy. This is not a 
loosely drawn conclusion, for every page of her 
writings, every by-law of her Mother Church 
Manual, every move of her following is sat- 
urated with this virus. 

What an offense to the intelligence of this day 
is the suppression of speech and opinion in 
"Christian Science" services. Mrs. Eddy was, 
though sagacious, not wise, for wisdom does not 
so conduct herself that her works must be 
studied under inquisitorial rules, read in half- 



394 FACTS AND FABLES 

secret, the tongue and reason tied in fear and 
superstition, propagating like disease germs in 
dark corners where the sunlight is not permitted 
to reach. 

Lift the curtains from the darkened cabinet 
from which the "Oracle of Christian Science ,, 
always plays her part; turn on the light of 
analysis and reason; and the world will behold 
the false trappings in which this religion has 
juggled with the credulity of tens of thousands. 

If a Sunday school is taught in secret, demand 
the reason why? If you get sophistries instead 
of reason, you may know that a disease is being 
propagated, for healthy tissue struggles of its 
own accord toward the open light. Health wishes 
to be seen in its beauty; but disease cries "let us 
alone/' and retires under cover of darkness and 
secrecy. The fox may be sagacious but not wise 
when he takes up his abode in the center of a 
well settled community to prey upon the feath- 
ered flocks of the barnyards. His sagacity may 
for a time let him slip safely around snare and 
trap — but only for a time, for he has made of 
himself a disease in the midst of honest hus- 
bandmen. His purpose is to destroy, to prey 
upon the works of men. He has not the wisdom 
to render service in the interest of the whole, 
and live as his domestic kin does — in peace, 
service and companionship with mankind about 
him. 

Adaptation is one of the fundamental char- 
acteristics of all sentient creatures — even the 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 395 

Board of Directors of the "Mother Church." 
When the white man's plague (tuberculosis) 
makes its start among an island people unac- 
quainted with its ravages, its attack is fatal, be- 
cause of the unpreparedness of the defense of 
the body, the white blood corpuscles or phago- 
sites. From long and trying experience with the 
disease the white race is gradually acquiring a 
higher and higher degree of resistance or im- 
munity. So severely beset and cornered do 
the bacilli sometimes become by the prepared- 
ness of the phagosites that they resort to in- 
trenchments not unlike the defenses of a forti- 
fied position in the wars of men. The leopard 
does change his spots when his environment de- 
mands it, but he remains a leopard still. 

"Christian Science" has been changing its coat 
these past years, even while Mrs. Eddy held the 
reins. Though the coat has been constantly 
changing to meet rising exigencies to permit of 
its stealthy movements amid the lights and 
shadows of its environment, its character and 
purpose has remained the same, only intensified 
with its successes. 

It began as a healing cult, in violation of the 
laws of the state in which it operated. In the 
early instructions of "the voice to this age" 
students were admonished to eschew the medical 
man as one in whom evil lurked. But after 
many suits were brought against healers for 
deaths among their patients, the "voice" cau- 
tioned them against such hindrances to their 



396 FACTS AND FABLES 

practice and they were advised to turn their 
moribund patients over to the evil ones. 

In the year 1884 Mrs. Eddy said that "an- 
atomy is a hindrance instead of a help;" that it 
"is the tree whereof wisdom forbade man to 
partake 55 ; but in late years she has advised the 
healer to discriminate between cases coming to 
him and turn surgical cases over to some sur- 
geon who has sinned by partaking of the tree of 
atatomy. 

As, according to Mrs. Eddy, the bacterio- 
logical researcher is responsible for all the con- 
tagious diseases known to man, she now advises 
her healers to pass the more dangerous cases by, 
generously rendering unto the bacteriologist the 
things that belong to bacteriologists. This is but 
a changing of the spots upon the coat to meet the 
shifting lights and shadows of legal environ- 
ment. The inner character is the same, "Chris- 
tian Science 55 is Mrs. Eddy, and must remain 
such until the centralized power of the Mother 
Church is broken, the by-laws of the Manual 
annulled and amended to meet the demands of 
reason and decency. 

During the last years of Mrs. Eddy's life 
other brains than her^s changed the spots upon 
the coat to meet the glaring defects of her un- 
tutored philosophy. So successfully have they 
wrought in the art of protective coloration that 
millions today believe that Mrs. Eddy taught her 
people to pray the prayer the Master prayed ; 
when, indeed, she makes such prayer of no 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 397 

effect. "Christian Science'' comes walking in 
the open day, clothed in the garments of the 
Man of Charities, luring the unsuspecting with 
repetitions of the word love, and before the one 
has become aware the Man of Charities has van- 
ished from his view and Mrs. Eddy stands over- 
shadowing all else and, about her a glitter of 
gold, promises of business Eldoradoes, freedom 
from responsibility of sin and brotherhood, and 
the vision of service, the true meaning of love, 
has vanished into self-seeking and hardness of 
heart. 

So profound is the truth of the teachings of 
Jesus Christ, so in conformity to the nature of 
things, that it is truly a world religion, capable 
of entering into the life of every race on the 
globe, and lifting them higher and higher and 
ever higher, even into the perfect day. His 
religion is the leaven of peace that will some day 
illumine the hearths of all men, giving to this 
earth a brotherhood of all its struggling races. 
He valued material things in their due propor- 
tions, and had the fragments of the loaves and 
fishes gathered up after feeding the multitudes 
that there be no waste. He called for a temper- 
ate, cleanly life that the physical body may be a 
fit dwelling place for the soul while sojourning 
here. His highest concern was for the evolution 
of character, and admonished that you "fear not 
them that are able to kill the body, but are not 
able to kill the soul." 

In no place has he ever appealed to the sordid 



398 FACTS AND FABLES 

and selfish in man, but has rather fixed his 
standard so high, the price in self-sacrifice so 
great, that few have found it convenient to follow 
his standard. He never compromised with evil 
or self-seeking to make easy the way for his 
followers; never lured them with the promise 
of riches, but rather warned them to prepare for 
the weight of the cross they must bear. He 
came serving and ministering to others, needing 
so little for himself. His riches were in the 
hearts of men. He was not poor in material 
things, for it took so little to meet his material 
wants. Infinitely rich in things of the soul, His 
poverty of purse was in the minds of those who 
had a wrong estimate of values. He garnered 
the hearts of men and warned them against the 
lure of gold. He blessed all nature that was 
fruitful, all things that served. He wept over the 
faults of men and gloried in their virtues. He 
prayed to the Father in the simplicity of a child. 
His prayer was not an affirmation, it was a sup- 
plication. God, to Him, was a listening ear, a 
willing, responsive Father. Love was the note 
that sounded in every chord He struck, even 
in the harsher chords of rebuke. Love was not 
a pleasant sounding word alone, but it was 
action that expressed itself in deeds of mercy 
and tender solicitude. Tears were not a fault, 
for He wept with those whose hearts were break- 
ing. He did not call for a denial of sin, He 
called for repentance. His heart went out to 
Jew and Gentile alike, for he perceived that their 



OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 399 

needs were the same. He drew all men to Him 
by the lure of love, and left a philosophy so 
broad, yet simple, that the wayfaring might 
understand, and He set the price of service to 
mankind as the only fee of entrance into His 
Kingdom of Hearts, 



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